Blackpool Combat Club helps deliver Rampage’s best numbers in months

The ratings are in for April 8, and they’re an interesting set of numbers for those of us who care about these things.

SmackDown overall and 18-49 year old audience dropped, which is somewhat surprising considering this was the show’s first episode since WrestleMania 38. But considering its numbers for the ‘Mania go home were so impressive, some modest declines don’t seem like a big deal. The show’s 2.23 million viewers was 5% less than April 1, and the .60 demo rating less than 2% below the Friday before. That .60 is still a really good number, though. It was the best among broadcast nationals, and second only to afternoon Masters coverage (featuring Tiger Woods return to golf) on all of television for the day.

Tony Khan indicated he was going to get more aggressive in booking Rampage in light of the show’s recent ratings slump, and he got the wrestle web’s tongues wagging with his “bots” tweet before the April 8 episode. Whether it was the compelling card, or TK’s social media marketing — it worked. Rampage hit 600K viewers for the first time since January. The show’s .25 in 18-49 was its best since October of last year. That’s a 32% boost in overall audience, and a .67% ratings jump over last week. Rampage finished fourth on cable, behind only Masters programming.

AEW gets its time slot shifted this Friday, but they have a huge live show with a World title match lined up for April 15. Thus far, WWE has announced an Intercontinental title match for this week’s SmackDown.

Numbers via Showbuzz Daily