WWE News: Smackdown's viewership shows a slight increase this week. As Raw continued a ratings free fall, Smackdown had a modest rebound.

WWE News: Smackdown's viewership shows a slight increase this week

As Raw continued a ratings free fall, Smackdown had a modest rebound.

Three of Smackdown Live’s biggest feuds came together in the main event this week

                 What’s the story?

Wrestling News World has reported the recent ratings for Smackdown Live this week, and the news is better than it was for Monday Night Raw. Smackdown saw a slight increase in viewership from 2.300M viewers last week to 2.348M this past Tuesday.

     In case you didn’t know...

Smackdown Live had the lowest ratings of 2017 with 2.300M viewers last week. Starting with the April 18th edition, Smackdown would continue a trend of the lowest ratings of the year until this week. The ratings did not dip below 2.5M viewers in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania.

      The heart of the matter

After both Monday Night Raw and Smackdown Live showed sharp drops in viewership last week, Smackdown would bounce back unlike its counterpart. The two months following WrestleMania are typically where the WWE sees the lowest number of viewers, and this year is no different.

Both Raw and Smackdown were on tape delay in the United States. This is telling because even though both shows had results online hours before they aired on television, only Raw suffered. 

                                                                                                          What’s next?

Next week’s edition of Smackdown Live will be the go-home show ahead of the Backlash pay per view on May 21st. Two of the major matches on the pay per view are Randy Orton v. Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship and Kevin Owens v. AJ Styles for the WWE United States Championship.

                                                                                                          Author’s Take

The ratings tell the story of how each show has fared since the brand split. Smackdown is consistently better, and this week was no exception.  

Monday Night Raw was somewhat of a mess. The fill-in general manager gimmick is something you would see at a house show event, not Monday Night Raw. Smackdown Live was also without general managers, but minus the replacements. It made for a better overall show on Tuesday.