WWE SmackDown viewers up in move to USA Network

WWE SmackDown officially moved to the USA Network this week and with it the expectation that viewers would be up, if only to pay off the promotion the company put into it. The idea was the show would be treated with equal importance to Monday Night Raw, and this week's episode featured John Cena (in his last appearance for a while), the debut of Mauro Ranallo on commentary as the new lead announcer, and two title matches (Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch, Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens).

The result was a jump in viewers, up to 2.75 million.

Here's how that compares to the last month of shows on SyFy:

Dec. 3: 2,044,000
Dec. 10: 2,133,000
Dec. 17: 2,332,000
Dec. 31: 1,658,000

That doesn't include the Dec. 22 live show on USA that drew 2.26 million viewers.

It's a nice bump for SmackDown, and not terribly far off from the 3.57 million Raw drew this past Monday night. That said, the real test will be how the show holds up in the coming weeks and months.

Get complete results and recap from the show here and here.