Friday Night SmackDown saw a drop in its audience without John Cena while AEW Rampage experienced a bump this past weekend.
The September 8 edition of SmackDown from Boston averaged 2,094,000 viewers and 692,000 (0.53) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.
The 14% decline in viewership led to SmackDown’s lowest audience since August 18, but the 18% decrease in the 18-49 audience represented its lowest in that demo since May 26.
In the key demo, female viewership fell from 325,000 to 250,000 and males dropped from 523,000 to 442,000.
Adults 18-34 were down by 16% this week with adults 35-49 seeing a 20% fall.
Canadian viewership fell 32% with an average of 165,700 viewers for Friday’s show on Sportsnet 360 and its lowest audience since August 4. In the 25-54 demographic, SmackDown averaged 63,7000, which was down from 98,900 the previous week.
The show didn’t feature John Cena, who returned to programming the previous week but was scheduled for the WWE event in India on the same day. Cena will be present at SmackDown for the next seven weeks until the end of October.
The show was headlined by Jimmy Uso’s first match in over two months as he took on AJ Styles with Solo Sikoa, Paul Heyman, and The Judgment Day getting involved as they ended the show.
AEW Rampage saw a bump with the continuation of the World Title Eliminator Tournament and a rare match involving The Young Bucks on the program.
Rampage averaged 385,000 viewers and 170,000 (0.13) in the 18-49 demographic, according to Thurston.
It would represent their largest audience since August 18 and was up 4% in overall viewership and 17% in the 18-49 audience compared with last week.
Female viewership in the key demo grew from 58,000 to 70,000 and males increased from 87,000 to 100,000.
Adults 18-34 saw a big 61% increase this week including males doubling from 20,000 last week to 40,000.
Adults 35-49 didn’t see the same boost with a 5% decrease due to males falling from 67,000 to 60,000 but females in the demo rising by 7%.
The show featured Penta El Zero M over Jay Lethal and Samoa Joe beating Jeff Hardy in the quarter-finals of the World Title Eliminator Tournament, as well as The Young Bucks beating Matt Menard & Angelo Parker in the key matches from the taped show.
It was the first time the Young Bucks had wrestled on Rampage since they wrestled in a six-man tag on the July 7 episode. They have only wrestled twelve times in the history of Rampage going back to August 2021.
