WWE Smackdown Ratings Held Steady Thanks To John Cena Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

It was one of the most anticipated WWE main events of the year, as John Cena faced off with Shinsuke Nakamura in the main event of Smackdown this week. The match was heavily advertised last week while AJ Styles defending the US Title against Kevin Owens was also promoted. It could be argued that they are the four best performers on Smackdown right now, so having two big matches with those four names should have produced a good number. The ratings are in, and WWE should be pleased with them.

This week’s Smackdown did 2.569 million viewers according to Showbuzz Daily. The number is up from last week’s 2.535 million viewers, which was headlined by Styles vs. Owens vs. Jericho for the US Title. It was most viewers for Smackdown since the June 27 show headlined by the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match.

It was a great idea to advertise Cena vs. Nakamura a week early even though some fans probably wanted their first match to take place at a pay-per-view event. Complaining about great matches for free seems silly, though, so I’m not going to complain about it too much. For next week’s Smackdown, the only thing advertised a week in advance is Naomi vs. Carmella in a non-title match, which isn’t exactly a big deal compared to Cena/Nakamura or the US Title.

In other Cena news, he congratulated Nakamura on the win on Twitter.

Good to see Cena doing fine after that awful landing on his head/neck on Smackdown.

I think WWE will be pleased with the number because it’s right around that 2.5 million range that Smackdown has been near for a few months now. However, they might be a bit frustrated because of the huge Cena/Nakamura match plus the US Title match on the same show. Can they get past that mark in the near future? I hope so because the last two weeks have provided us with strong wrestling heavy shows and if it continues, the fans will tune in more often.