It was an explosive night of action on WWE Smackdown this week as they put on their last show before Survivor Series. There were two title matches on the card as Baron Corbin defeated Sin Cara to retain the United States Championship while Charlotte Flair beat Natalya to become the Smackdown Women’s Champion for the first time. It was a great moment for Charlotte in her hometown and also because her dad Ric Flair was there to give her a big hug on the stage.
The biggest news from Smackdown took place in the last ten minutes of the show as The New Day’s Big E and Kofi Kingston wrestled Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in the main event. The Shield’s music started up leading to Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose making their way down to the ring. That was followed by most of the Raw roster. It led to Raw superstars beating up Smackdown superstars as payback for the #UnderSiege attack Smackdown did to Raw a few week ago. Smackdown ended with Raw’s superstars standing tall while SD’s Commissioner Shane McMahon was victimized by The Shield and Raw GM Kurt Angle.
There was good news in terms of the Smackdown ratings this week because the show did 2.607 million viewers according to Showbuzz Daily. It’s a number that is nearly identical to last week’s show, which drew 2.603 million viewers. Both numbers are around what Smackdown usually does and a big improvement of the brutal 2.12 million number from two weeks ago that may have been what caused AJ Styles winning the WWE Title last week.
It was smart of WWE to advertise the two title matches plus the New Day vs. Owens/Zayn match because it gave us something to look forward. No word on what they plan to do on next week’s Smackdown, but it takes place two days after Survivor Series, which usually means ratings go up because interest in shows tend to be higher following a pay-per-view event.
The question is, can Smackdown improve without the great James Ellsworth? We hope so.
