Last night’s episode of WWE Smackdown was highlighted by Roman Reigns and Jey Uso setting the terms for their tribal combat at SummerSlam, and, once again, The Bloodline delivered a compelling TV segment that set the stakes high for their next premium live event collision. The show also featured Dominik Mysterio’s first successful defense of his newly won WWE NXT North American Championship, and his father, Rey Mysterio, winning his WWE United States Championship Invitational semi-final match, among other highlights.
For fans tuned into Fox to catch the action live, you were likely confused to find the FIFA Women’s World Cup on-screen instead of Anoa’i family drama. Due to that big soccer event taking place, WWE Smackdown was moved to Fox Sports 1 this week, a move that has traditionally hampered viewership for the show. The last time WWE Smackdown was moved to FS1, December 2, 2022, it pulled in an average of 902,000 viewers, with about 326,000 of those in the coveted P18-49 demo that is most attractive to advertisers.
Haus of Wrestling has obtained the fast national ratings for last night’s episode of WWE Smackdown, and it drew an average of 1,182,000 viewers, a 31% increase over the last WWE Smackdown airing on FS1 and the highest overall viewership Smackdown has ever drawn on the channel. The episode also drew 448,000 viewers in the P18-49 demographic, a 37% increase from the last FS1 airing.
These latest viewership numbers continue a positive trend for WWE as this past Tuesday night’s installment of WWE NXT drew an average of 746,000 viewers, along with a show-high quarter-hour viewership of 844,000 fans for the NXT North American title match between then-champion Wes Lee and Dominik Mysterio. It is worth noting that Dominik was involved in the final match on Raw, Smackdown, and WWE NXT this week and has seemingly become a meaningful attraction for the promotion.