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The Fri., Aug. 28 SmackDown had a lot of things going for it. It was both the fallout and go home episode for a PPV event. It didn’t have nationally televised sports competition thanks to the NBA playoff hiatus. And it featured the still-fresh ThunderDome concept, with big production values and virtual fans at Orlando’s Amway Center.
With all that, WWE and Fox might have liked to see a larger increase in viewers and some growth in the ratings. But they’re still going to consider a slight uptick in audience size, and numbers that were good enough to lead the broadcast networks in the key demos a win.
Here are the fast nationals:
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And here’s our running tracker of every other episode since WWE moved to Fridays last fall (all data via Showbuzz Daily):
SmackDown ended with a genuinely compelling cliffhanger last night, and intrigue about the Roman Reigns/Paul Heyman pairing will likely only grow after Payback’s Universal title match. Will that, and the energy of ThunderDome, bring the blue brand its fifth straight week of increasing viewership?
For complete results and the live blog for SmackDown this week click here. To read a complete recap & review of all the night’s events click here. For a full playlist of the show click here.