The WWE Draft edition of Friday Night SmackDown led to the show hitting a three-week high that included appearances by Brock Lesnar and Edge.
The October 1st edition of the show averaged 2,252,000 viewers and 809,000 (0.62) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
SmnackDown finished first among all network programming, edging out ABC’s Most Magical Story. SmackDown was second in 18-34 behind the ABC program.
It was their best figure since the September 10th episode, which was a loaded episode from Madison Square Garden. Aside from the MSG, it was the most-watched SmackDown since July 16th, which was the first show back with fans.
Compared to the 2020 Draft on SmackDown during the ThunderDome era, this year’s show was up 3 percent in viewers but dropped by 3.5 percent in 18-49. In 2019, which was the last draft show in front of fans and their second week on Fox where they did 2,877,000 viewers and 1.0 in 18-49.
In Canada, the show finished with 115,7000 viewers and 37,300 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. They had major sports competition with the Toronto Blue Jays fighting for a wild card spot and their game against the Baltimore Orioles topped 1,270,000 viewers.
AEW Rampage fell to its lowest viewership in the show’s short history with 622,000 viewers and 330,000 (0.25) in the 18-49 demographic, per Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
The audience was down 3 percent and declined 12 percent in the 18-49 demo from the week prior while finished third among all cable programs.
Their major competition on cable was the college football game between Iowa and Maryland that did 0.38 in 18-49 and 1,381,000 viewers on FS 1. Rampage finished on top of Love After Lockup (0.24) and Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives (0.21) on The Food Network.
Rampage was coming off last week’s big event at Arthur Ashe Stadium that included CM Punk’s first match on national television since 2014 and an Unsanctioned Lights Out match. This week featured Bryan Danielson wrestling Nick Jackson and a Hair vs. Hair match as the key attractions.
This week’s show fell 21.5 percent among adults 25-54 while males 18-49 and 12-34 each fell by 21 percent as the largest declines. Rampage’s female audience only fell by 7 percent in 18-49 while women 12-34 stayed even from the week prior. The only audience that increased was adults over 50 by 9.5 percent.
Since the All Out pay-per-view, Rampage is averaging 643,500 viewers and 355,000 in 18-49.
In other viewership news, IMPACT Wrestling from this past Thursday averaged 115,000 viewers and 0.03 in the 18-49 demographic.
Dark Side of the Ring’s episode covering the history of FMW and Atsushi Onita was down significantly with 126,000 viewers and 0.04 in the 18-49 demo, which would be the lowest average viewership in the history of the series.
Both IMPACT and Dark Side of the Ring went against the Thursday night NFL game between Jacksonville and Cincinnati that did just over eight million viewers.
