The November 29 “WWE SmackDown” was the final stop on the road to the Survivor Series Premium Live Event in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on November 30. Jacob Fatu earned Solo Sikoa’s Bloodline the advantage for WarGames, Michin moved on to the next round of the Women’s United States Championship tournament, and a sit-down conversation between Roman Reigns, CM Punk, and Paul Heyman needed to take place in order to ensure solidarity for The OG Bloodline.
But with all of that action, the ratings didn’t reflect that, as Wrestlenomics reports that the November 29 episode averaged a total of 1,341,000 viewers, a 15% drop from the previous week, which averaged 1,578,000. It is also a 7% drop from the trailing four-week average that stands at 1,444,000 viewers, with the Thanksgiving season, and the amount of football that comes with it, hurting “SmackDown’s” number.
The competition also hurt “SmackDown’s” number in the key 18-49 demographic, as that dropped from a 0.46 for November 22, to 0.40 for November 29, a 13% drop in total according to Programming Insider. Despite the number dropping, it was still enough to see “SmackDown” rank first for the evening when it comes to all prime time cable telecasts, beating the NBA game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Minnesota Timberwolves on ESPN. When including network telecasts, “SmackDown” ranked third for all shows that aired in prime time, being beaten by the college football games that aired on ABC and NBC respectively. Fans who tuned in also got to see Cody Rhodes defeat Carmelo Hayes in a non-title match, Shinsuke Nakamura defeat Andrade in singles action, and the entrants into the women’s WarGames match come to blows less than 24 hours before their heated encounter.
