Overnight viewership figures for Friday Night SmackDown

Why is everyone looking at the total number and Instead see where SD hit with the key demos. Yowie wowie.

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TBH, I’ll pay more attention when it was a normal episode, not a gimmicked one that was in essence, buying a rating

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WWE has some dream matches as well. Cena vs Rock did huge numbers a while back.

You can see a Rock vs Austin or Rock vs Brock or something being huge as well. Maybe even Brock vs Cormier

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I don’t think Alex’s point is about if AEW pleased their network. I think his point was about where to place them in the overall wrestling picture. They did well for what they are but they’re not a competitor for WWE’s main roster. Yet.

And I don’t consider NXT to be main roster. The budget and presentation still has them firmly as a separate project under Raw and SmackDown. Even if NXT continues losing the ratings handbags, it was a genius move from WWE to frame it as “WWE’s low budget brand vs. AEW”. Automatically makes AEW a smaller fish. They can force themselves out of that framing though if they start hitting 2s.

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Couldn’t have said it better myself. That’s exactly it. They aren’t competitors to the main roster yet. WWE has positioned them to compete with the development brand and they are at that level for now. Today’s Smackdown rating is a level AEW can’t even reach half of yet

Apples & oranges when it comes to network numbers vs. cable numbers.

Really strong numbers for all 3 shows, though. I think AEW had the best TV show of the week, NXT had the best matches, & SDFX had the biggest “water cooler” moment (poor Raw…Lol!). :100:

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That number is pretty good when you realize that doesn’t include west coast numbers. I think John and Wai’s prediction of around 4.4 or so looks to be pretty accurate. I think Fox will be happy with that. They are never going to beat the number 1. They are playing for second place on the night at this point. Regardless of numbers, the show was pretty lackluster for the most part. A decent episode of Smackdown at best. If you didn’t have Rock in there it would have been very weak overall.

AEW was never going to be in the main rosters league out of the box. They lack the inertia, and star power to do so.

Yeah I guess I thought Jericho and Kenny and The Bucks especially where big enough to draw a comparable audience.

May just be a factor of time. RAW I bet going forward drops as Smackdown becomes the A show

Kenny and the Bucks aren’t big stars. They are cult stars. Meaning they have a fairly sizable following in their own corner of the world but they aren’t main stream like many WWE stars. They aren’t the Rock, or Cena, or Stone Cold. I mean at this point I would say Becky Lynch has more name recognition in the main stream then any of those guys. If you look at twitter followers Becky has more followers (by almost 800k) than the Young Bucks and Kenny combined.

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I feel like you are ignoring the video game and comic con world. Meltzer always says his son knows Kenny really well and doesn’t follow wrestling

See the twitter comment. i’m Not discounting those they just aren’t a huge main stream audience.

If I put the Rock in that conversation his twitter is bigger than all of AEW combined.

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It was their first weekly show you weirdo. Why would you expect them to immediately compete with the biggest wrestling company in the universe

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Bc nitro did on their first show

They actually had lower rating than Impact debut on Monday :frowning:

Not good to compare ratings historically live TV is no where near what it used to be. Especially looking back say to 2010.

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WCW existed and had huge cable ratings before Nitro debuted. TBS has been broadcasting WCW / NWA shows for decades.

Impact as well had existed for six or seven years before they went head to head, and brought in Hogan and other proven mega stars.

Nobody is saying Kenny and the Bucks don’t have very good followings (especially when ROH / NJPW were there biggest platforms). However, even their biggest fans have to realize nothing has given them the exposure that national Cable in the US can, yet. Now that they are there they and the promotion has a chance to grow.

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No one actually reads what you type and believes you are a human being.

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Just read this, you really are some sort of troll bot.

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You are the A show

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Why don’t you become a patreon and then come talk to me