Cena helps SmackDown to its biggest audience in two years

WWE spent two weeks advertising John Cena’s first televised match since SummerSlam 2021 for the Dec. 30 SmackDown. The Peacemaker star’s tag match with Kevin Owens also featured the red hot Sami Zayn & Roman Reigns as part of the uber-popular Bloodline angle.

That’s pretty much what you need to know before we dive into these numbers.

The show was watched by 2,629,000 people. That’s 10.5% more than the week before. Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston tells us it’s the show’s biggest audience since 2020’s Christmas Day episode, and that was inflated by an NFL overrun on FOX. Among 18-49 year olds, SmackDown did a .64 rating. That was 16% than Dec. 23, and the best in that metric since Jan. 22, 2022’s star-studded road to Royal Rumble edition.

WWE won the night among broadcast channels for FOX. Overall, SmackDown was seventh on the day, with everything ahead of it a college football bowl game on ESPN.

How much of that audience will stick around in the new year. While you think about that, here’s a rundown of the past eight months or so of the blue show’s numbers:

• April 1 - 2.36 million / .61
• April 8 - 2.23 / .60
• Apri 15 - 2.14 / .48
• April 22 - 1.95 / .47
• April 29 - 1.95 / .38
• May 6 - 2.00 / .46
• May 13 - 1.89 / .40
• May 20 - 2.03 / .45
• May 27 - 1.88 / .43
• June 3 - 1.94 / .47
• June 10 - 1.91 / .44
• June 17 - 2.29 / .57
• June 24 - 2.23 / .53
• July 1 - 2.14 / .49
• July 8 - 2.13 / .47
• July 15 - 2.08 / .47
• July 22 - 2.26 / .62
• July 29 - 2.19 / .52
• Aug. 5 - 2.09 / .49
• Aug. 12 - 1.93 / .44
• Aug. 19 - 2.08 / .47
• Aug. 26 - 1.99 / .48
• Sept. 2 - 2.08 / .49
• Sept. 9 - 2.37 / .57
• Sept. 16 - 2.21 / .50
• Sept. 23 - 2.54 / .63
• Sept. 30 - 2.21 / .54
• Oct. 7 - 2.24 / .54
• Oct. 14 - 2.27 / .54
• Oct. 21 - 2.23 / .52
• Oct. 28* - 835K / .23
• Nov. 4 - 2.14 million / .48
• Nov. 11 - 2.26 / .58
• Nov. 18 - 2.23 / .56
• Nov. 25 - 2.17 / .54
• Dec. 2* - 902K / .25
• Dec. 9 - 2.31 million / .57
• Dec. 16 - 2.19 / .52
• Dec. 23 - 2.38 / .55
• Dec. 30 - 2.63 / .64

* Aired on FS1

For complete results and this week’s SmackDown live blog click here. To read a recap & review of the night’s events click here. For video highlights of the show click here.

Numbers via Showbuzz Daily