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What's the story?
Courtesy Showbuzz Daily, SmackDown Live's viewership dipped slightly this week, garnering 2.530 million viewers. The main event of the show was John Cena vs WWE Champion Jinder Mahal.
The show itself was notable mainly for the end where Baron Corbin cashed-in his Money In The Bank briefcase but failed to become WWE champion.
In case you didn't know...
The latest episode of SmackDown Live was the go-home show to SummerSlam. Natalya faced Becky Lynch, Fashion Peaks came to a conclusion, Nakamura had a final face-off with Jinder, and more happened.
The episode itself was quite lacklustre, but it was the end of the show that created a lot of buzz. Corbin's failed cash-in took everyone by shock as fans expected The Lone Wolf to get a huge push this year and become WWE Champion. However, a distraction from John Cena cost Corbin the WWE title.
The heart of the matter
SmackDown Live's viewership dropped by 84,000, with last week's viewership being 2.584 million viewers and this week being 2.530 million.
This isn't too bad a drop, but it's definitely an indication of the lack of buzz heading into SummerSlam, which is WWE's second biggest show of the year.
However, one can definitely expect viewership on both RAW and SmackDown Live next week to increase as they are the post-SummerSlam shows. Usually, viewership does increase around the time.
If SummerSlam garners a lot of negativity and doesn't live up to fans' expectations, then it's possible that viewership could see a stand-still or even a drop.
SmackDown Live's viewership has been more or less steady for a while around the 2 and a half million mark. The fact that John Cena will be going over to RAW after SummerSlam doesn't exactly help either. Cena is considered one of WWE's last big draws.
What's next?
SmackDown Live marches on to SummerSlam this Sunday. One could argue that the SummerSlam card from RAW's side is more stacked, but SmackDown Live still has the potential to have some serious show-stealers.
Author's Take
It doesn't come as a surprise that viewership has been stagnant heading into SummerSlam. There hasn't been much buzz and from the SmackDown Live end of things, the build has definitely been weaker.
Hopefully, the matches live up and make fans want to tune in next week to SmackDown Live.
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