Both WWE SmackDown and AEW Rampage were up in total viewership this past Friday.
SmackDown benefited from the long-awaited return of Roman Reigns, while Rampage had a strong lead-in from an NBA pre-season exhibition game.
Courtesy of data from Brandon Thurston at Wrestlenomics, the October 13th episode of SmackDown reached a total average viewership of 2,417,000 — up from 2,319,000 the previous week.
The show dipped slightly week-on-week in the key 18-49 demo, however, reaching 0.62 compared with 0.64 for the October 6th episode.
Meanwhile, AEW Rampage got a boost from a lead-in courtesy of an NBA pre-season exhibition game on TNT. The show reached a four-week high in total average viewership, with 407,000 tuning in compared with 365,000 last week.
In the 18-49 demo, Rampage was also up on the previous week, reaching 0.14 compared with 0.12 on October 6th.