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What's the story?
Showbuzz Daily reported that SmackDown Live viewership this week drew 2.465 million viewers, which is up 6% from last week
In case you didn't know...
The SmackDown Live episode kicked off with AJ Styles bringing back the US Open challenge, only for it to be answered by the man who created it: John Cena. The two were about to get at it once more, this time for the US title, but Kevin Owens interrupted.
This led to the main event being made where John Cena & AJ Styles teamed up for the first time to take on Kevin Owens and Rusev. The dream duo picked up the victory, and Cena raised Styles' hand in respect to end the show.
The heart of the matter
SmackDown Live's viewership this week was 2.465 million viewers, 6% up from last week's 2.329 viewers.
Last week's episode was July 4th, and usually, Independence Day episodes have much lower viewership. However, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter stated that John Cena's return was a huge draw and had a huge impact on the viewership staying fairly stable.
As long as Cena is around, it won't be surprising to see viewership take a step up every week. The latest episode also featured Jinder Mahal vs Tye Dillinger, a brawl between Shinsuke Nakamura and Baron Corbin and a match between Xavier Woods and Jey Uso, among others.
RAW drew 3.009 million viewers, up from last week's 2.839 million viewers. This was 22% higher than the SmackDown Live viewership.
What's next?
With only one more episode of SmackDown Live left until Battleground, expect the superstars of the blue brand to gear it up in the go-home show with some very interesting segments and matches.
Author's Take
It's surprising that the viewership didn't increase more since it was a non-holiday episode. However, it shouldn't come as a shock if viewership increases next week as it's the go-home show to Battleground.
The John Cena-AJ Styles team up was something of a dream, and hopefully, the tease will result in a United States Championship match sometime in the near future before Cena once again leaves for Hollywood.
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