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What's the Story?
SmackDown Live came hot of the heels of what many considered to be one of the worst Raw episodes of all time.
Fortunately for the blue brand, the November 27 edition of the program saw viewership increase while Monday Night Raw's numbers declined.
In case you didn't know
Becky Lynch's return kicked off this week's episode and her confrontation with Charlotte Flair lead to Paige booking them in a TLC match for the SmackDown Women's Championship.
Other key moments from the show included The Usos defeating The Bar in a non-title match, Jeff Hardy celebrating 20 years in the wrestling business and Asuka winning a battle royal to be added to the SmackDown Women's Championship match at TLC.
The heart of the matter
SmackDown Live averaged 2.26 million viewers this week and was up 114,000 from last week's episode on November 20.
The Blue Brand dominated Tuesday Night Cable beating programs on Bravo, ESPN, MTV and the History Channel.
Despite the increasingly negative opinions surfacing for this week's episode of Raw, the fans seemed to have enjoyed SmackDown as the numbers for the November 27 show were the second highest for the entire month.
Viewership for SmackDown Live in 2018 pails in comparison to the numbers the show has been getting the past two years but SmackDown has received mostly positive reviews throughout the year, unlike their Monday night counterpart.
What's next?
SmackDown and Raw are both building towards the final pay-per-view of 2018, Tables, Ladders & Chairs, but a majority of the excitement is associated with the matches the Tuesday night show has to offer.
Raw tends to have the stronger viewership of both programs towards the end of the year, but the massive decline in the flagship show's viewership could see that trend reversed.
