WWE SmackDown Ratings Rise Against AEW Collision Competition
There is good news for WWE SmackDown regarding the ratings while going head-to-head with AEW Collision.
The November 17th edition of WWE SmackDown featured some tough competition from AEW Collision, which aired on Friday instead of Saturday this week. It was the first time that Collision went head-to-head with the blue brand.
Since AEW Full Gear takes place on Saturday, November 18th, the company decided to move Collision to Friday night at 8 p.m. ET for two hours instead. That meant that wrestling fans in the US could choose between SmackDown on FOX or Collision on TNT.
When it comes to the television ratings, WWE is likely going to be happy with how SmackDown fared against Collision. It was reported by Programming Insider that SmackDown drew 2.22 million viewers, which is an increase of 6% over last week. Those are just the preliminary numbers. Raj Giri reports that the final number should be over 2.3 million viewers.
In addition to that, the coveted 18-49 age rating was 0.60 for 792,000 viewers, which was up 15% from the previous week. It was also the number-one show across broadcast television.
The main event segment on WWE SmackDown saw the trio of Charlotte Flair, Bianca Belair & Shotzi were joined by Becky Lynch, who was announced as their WarGames partner against Damage CTRL’s Bayley, WWE Women’s Champion IYO SKY, Asuka & Kairi Sane. That WarGames match will take place at Survivor Series on November 25th in Chicago.
As for AEW Collision, they did 251,000 average viewers. That’s below what they usually do on Saturdays.
What Is Coming Up On The November 24th Episode Of WWE SmackDown?
There will be championship gold on the line on the November 24th episode of SmackDown as The Judgment Day’s Damian Priest & Finn Balor defend their titles against The Street Profits duo of Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins.
The Street Profits earned their title shot by winning a triple threat match over The Brawling Brutes and Pretty Deadly.
Kevin Owens will also be back after being “suspended” for one week. Owens will be a guest on the Grayson Waller Effect talk show hosted by Grayson Waller.
In other news regarding the next SmackDown episode, the show will air on FS1 rather than FOX, so that should lead to a smaller audience watching at home.