SmackDown audience numbers come crashing back down

WWE and Fox got great news last Friday (Sept. 11) as SmackDown’s rising viewership soared to its best number since the WrestleMania 36 fallout episode back in April.

On Sept. 18, going up against coverage of a national tragedy that doubled as the start of our latest political brawl, that number came crashing back down. SmackDown lost more than 300K viewers from the week prior, drawing an average of 1.95 million across its two hours last night. It’s the smallest audience since July.

Maybe Eric Bischoff is right? We’ll have a better idea when the Friday night cable numbers arrive next week.

Ratings dipped as well, but still delivered the night for Fox in the key demos.

Here are the fast nationals:

Showbuzz Daily

And here’s our running tracker of every other episode since WWE moved to Fridays last fall (all data via Showbuzz Daily):

Definitely disappointing that a string of well-received shows which seemed to be holding viewers lost momentum this week, but the news of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg’s death sucked the proverbial air out of the room (and rightfully so).

We’ll see if the blue brand can get back on the upswing with the Clash of Champions go home episode on Sept. 25.

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.