It looks like fans were not interested to see AJ Styles vs. Dean Ambrose IV, as the blue brand drew just 2.127 million viewers, this week. This is down a whopping 11% from last week’s 2.405 million viewers.
The viewership was the lowest since the blue brand went live on July 19th. The numbers this week, are fairly similar to the numbers of the show before it went live, and was simply a taped show that many called as a “Raw recap”.
Smackdown Live was up against Game 1 of the World Series, as well as the opening night of the NBA. SmackDown Live was #8 for the night in viewership, behind NBA games, Hannity, The Kelly File, The O'Reilly Factor, Special Report and The Five. The show was #4 in the 18-49 demographic, behind the NBA games and Inside The NBA.
Monday Night Raw averaged 2.819 million viewers, which itself was quite a drop from the previous week’s 3.1 million viewership. Goldberg’s return, was naturally a huge draw for Raw last week, as it was the first time in ages that none of the three hours went below 3 million in viewership.
However, the return of The Beast Incarnate, Brock Lesnar, did not draw as well. In fact, it caused a bit of a ruckus and was dealt with criticism. Surprisingly enough, Paul Heyman, for perhaps the first time in his career, was criticised for having a bad promo.
WWE clearly have tough competition going forward, but maybe next week’s viewership for Smackdown Live will recover. The fact that they went up against Game 1 of the World Series and the opening night of NBA cannot be emphasised more. No match is advertised for next week’s Smackdown Live.
Here is the main event from this past week’s Smackdown Live:
We even saw the return of the Lass Kicker and Smackdown Women’s Champion, Becky Lynch:
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