Even casual and lapsed wrestling fans are excited about the Road to WrestleMania, and it’s clear at this point that more WWE viewers are coming back into the fold following the Royal Rumble. This week’s Raw drew more viewers than they have since last April, and now Smackdown has followed that up with their biggest ratings bonanza since the massive WWE Draft in July.
The Draft was one of two occasions in the past year that Smackdown beat Raw in the weekly ratings, and although they didn’t top Raw’s big number from Monday, they leapt quite a bit from last week, and are also up from last year’s post-Rumble episode of Smackdown.
This week’s show pulled in 2.817 million viewers, according to ShowBuzz Daily, which is a 10 percent leap from last week’s 2.556 million, about the same degree of leap in viewership that Raw saw on Monday. Smackdown also won the No. 1 cable slot for the crown jewel 18-49 demographic, so this is a big week for WWE all around.
Time will tell whether WWE is able to maintain these improved numbers all the way through WrestleMania, or perhaps even improve on them, but the early signs are good. People like the run-up to WrestleMania. Who knew?
