What’s the story?
This week’s episode of SmackDown Live saw a slight increase in viewership from the previous week. The May 30, 2017, edition of SmackDown averaged 2.350 million viewers; the highest numbers the show have done in the past 4 weeks.
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The two matches that received the most hype for Smackdown this week were the Fatal 5-Way match to determine the number one contender for the SmackDown Women’s Championship and the match between AJ Styles and Dolph Ziggler.
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The show started with the Kevin Owens Highlight Reel that eventually led to Owens and Baron Corbin facing Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura in tag team action
About midway through the show, the Fatal 5-Way never got a chance to start because all five women attacked each other prior to the bell being rung. Commissioner Shane McMahon came out and announced that Carmella, Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Natalya, and Tamina would be competing in the first ever Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match.
The show closed with the match between The Phenomenal One and The Showoff that ended with Ziggler getting the upset victory.
The heart of the matter
SmackDown’s viewership began a decline on April 18, 2017, episode when viewership dropped by approximately 560,000 following the Superstar Shakeup the week before.
SmackDown’s viewership would reach its lowest point four weeks later on the go-home show for Backlash with an average of 2.175 million viewers but would rise back to 2.328 million the following week.
This week’s episode was up 22,000 viewers from the May 23, 2017, episode and achieved the highest viewership for the month of May.
What’s next?
The WWE Champion, Jinder Mahal, and the challenger, Randy Orton, were both on the show, but their segment would only last a little over 5 minutes prior to the main event. The only match that was announced a week prior to the show was the Fatal Five-Way Women’s Match which may be one of the main reasons the show’s viewership increased.
Author’s Take
For the past two weeks, SmackDown’s viewership has slowly but surely begun to recover from their all-time low this year while Monday Night Raw has continued to set new record lows.
If Raw continues to lose viewers at their current rate while SmackDown regains viewers, it may not be too long before SmackDown eclipses Raw in viewership and truly becomes the A-show.
