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What's the story?
This week's edition of SmackDown Live was the go-home show before the final single-branded pay per view WWE Fastlane before the switch to co-branded pay per views going forward.
Wrestling Inc. provided the details of the ratings for SmackDown Live, and the audience dropped by 100k from the previous week.
In case you didn't know...
WWE SmackDown started on the now-defunct UPN Network on April 29, 1999. Since then, there have been a total of 968 episodes.
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The heart of the matter
The March 6th edition of SmackDown Live garnered a total of 2.590 million viewers, compared to the 2.692 million viewers that tuned into the February 27th episode.
The first episode of SmackDown Live on January 2nd remains the highest rated show of 2018 with 2.720 million viewers.
This week's SmackDown Live ranked fourth among all cable shows behind Curse of Oak Island and news shows Hannity and Rachel Maddow.
The show also ranked second in the 18-49 demographic.
The show was highlighted by AJ Styles taking on Dolph Ziggler in the start of the second hour; which turned into a Fatal-5-Way match between all competitors that are in Sunday's Six-Pack Challenge, except for John Cena.
The match was won by Sami Zayn when he attacked Kevin Owens by surprise with a Helluva Kick and pinned him.
What's next?
WWE Fastlane takes place in just a few days on Sunday, March 11th from the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
In addition to the Six-Pack Challenge for the WWE Championship, Bobby Roode will defend his WWE United States Championship against Randy Orton, and Charlotte Flair defends her WWE SmackDown Women's Championship against Ruby Riott.
Author's take
It was a good edition of SmackDown Live. I like how they turned the AJ Styles v. Dolph Ziggler match into a Fatal-5-Way, as long as they change things up in the Six-Pack Challenge on Sunday.
The card looks good for Fastlane, and am really looking forward to the WWE Championship match, the New Day v. The Usos, and especially Randy Orton v. Bobby Roode for the WWE United States Championship.
Randy Orton picks the next Randy Orton HERE.
