WON: Segment-by-segment breakdown of this week’s Smackdown, RAW, AEW and NXT ratings
The good news for Smackdown is that the show consistently increased the audience, starting at 854,000 viewers and peaking for the main event of Roman Reigns & Ali & Shorty G vs. Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura & King Corbin at 1,019,000 viewers.
New Day vs. Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode lost 89,000 viewers. The Lacey Evans squash and Nikki Cross promo gained 18,000 viewers. The Firefly Fun House, Drew Gulak vs. Kalisto and Braun Strowman promo gained 83,000 viewers. The in-ring with Daniel Bryan, Nakamura and Sami Zayn gained 60,000 viewers. The Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman, Rey Mysterio and Cain Velasquez in-ring gained 16,000 viewers. The part of the angle in the trainers office with Lesnar and Velasquez gained 10,000 viewers. And the main event gained 67,000 viewers.
In the segment-by-segment, for RAW, the high point with 2,457,000 viewers was Becky Lynch vs. Kairi Sane. The low point was the Aleister Black interview at 1,881,000 viewers (although that segment also had two commercial breaks in it). Lynch vs. Sane gained 108,000 viewers. R-Truth vs. Buddy Murphy lost 213,000 viewers. Street Profits interview and Hulk Hogan & Ric Flair coming out gained 15,000 viewers. Ricochet vs. Drew McIntyre gained 40,000 viewers. Viking Raiders squash lost 128,000 viewers. Andrade vs. Sin Cara lost 164,000 viewers. Charlotte Flair & Natalya vs. The Iiconics gained 98,000 viewers. Seth Rollins vs. Erick Rowan lost 56,000 viewers. Black interview lost 231,000 viewers. A.J. Styles vs. Humberto Carrillo gained 71,000 viewers. And the Rusev/Lana angle at the end gained 68,000 viewers.
Teenagers ranged from 47,000 for Lynch vs. Sane to 21,000 for Rollins vs. Rowan. 18-34 was strong for Lynch vs. Sane, Ricochet vs. McIntyre and Rollins vs. Rowan. Women 18-34 peaked for Lynch vs. Sane. Men 18-34 peaked for Viking Raiders and Black.
The first-to-third hour drop was 17.1 percent, not record breaking but much larger than has been the case in most weeks. They has also loaded the show, with the most pushed match, Seth Rollins vs. Erick Rowan, and the angle the show was built around, the Lana/Rusev face-to-face, both taking place in the third hour.
The first-to-third hour drops were 26.3 percent with women 18-49, 12.9 percent for men 18-49, 11.5 percent with teenage girls, 15.1 percent for teenage boys and 11.2 percent over 50. The most notable thing seems to be the Lana-Rusev angle idea was a major turnoff with adult women and didn’t seem to spark interest anywhere else either.
For AEW, the high point was 880,000 in the first segment. The low point was 701,000 for the Cody and Tony Schiavone car ride and Best Friends & Orange Cassidy vs. Alex Reynolds & John Silver & QT Marshall. Hikaru Shida vs. Shanna lost 85,000 viewers. The end of Shida vs. Shanna and the angle with Ortiz & Santana and the Rock & Roll Express lost 60,000 viewers. The Cody car ride and Best Friend s match lost 34,000 viewers,. The Cody/Chris Jericho contract signing and beating of Dustin Rhodes by Jake Hager gained 51,000 viewers. The Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs. Jack Evans & Angelico & Kip Sabian lost 45,000 viewers. The end of that match plus the Jon Moxley/Peter Avalon angle and Moxley promo gained 9,000 viewers. And the Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian tag title win over Pentagon Jr. & Fenix gained 55,000 viewers to 781,000.
For NXT, the Finn Balor promo grew 30,000 viewers. I had expected Balor promo vs. Hikaru Shida to be close, but AEW had a 795,000 to 607,000 edge. Bronson Reed vs. Shane Thorne lost 62,000 viewers. The women’s tag title match gained 143,000 viewers, so they ended up meaning far more than Balor. The War Games angle after the match lost 39,000 viewers. Grimes vs. Bate lost 163,000 viewers. Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Matt Riddle & Keith Lee lost 27,000 viewers in the head-to-head, but when AEW ended, they gained 145,000 viewers in the overrun so that’s probably a lot of AEW viewers. It probably also kills them in the last quarter because fans watch the NXT main events in fewer numbers knowing they can watch the AEW closing angle and miss nothing on NXT and still see its closing angle.
NXT did very close to AEW from 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with Asuka & Kairi Sane vs. Dakota Kai & Tegan Nox, going against the Jericho contract signing and Young Bucks & Omega match. The AEW edge was 730,000 to 679,000 during that half hour, the closest it has come. But NXT collapsed in the last half hour of the show with the Tyler Bate vs. Cameron Grimes match and tag title match, with the head-to-head tag title matches doing 781,000 to 467,000.
The baseball did over 20m. AEW & NXT should jump up a bit next week.