WWE SmackDown Ratings: Viewership Down This Week

The WWE SmackDown ratings are in for Friday night's show on FOX, and the numbers showed a decrease in viewership compared to last week's show. As far as the demographic ratings go, the numbers stayed pretty close to where they have been the last several weeks.

According to Showbuzz Daily, SmackDown drew an average of 2.453 million viewers this week. That numbers comes from 2.579 million viewers in hour number one and 2.326 million viewers in hour number two.

That viewership total ranked number eight for the night among competition on network television on Friday night. SmackDown was outdrawn in viewers by Shark Tank, 20/20, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O, Blue Bloods, Lincoln Rhyme, and Dateline.

In the key 18-49 age group demographic, SmackDown drew a 0.70 rating. This ranked number two for the night on cable television, with WWE finishing behind Shark Tank. This number was also down from the 0.80 demo rating the show drew last week, but equal to what the broadcast did in the prior two weeks before that. Every SmackDown on FOX since January has drawn either a 0.70 or 0.80 in this demo.

In the 18-34 ratings demo, SmackDown finished with a 0.40, which tied with 20/20, Shark Tank, and Hawaii Five-O for first place in that demo.

This week's SmackDown featured the television return of the nWo (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and X-Pac), as well as a long gauntlet tag team match in the second hour of the show to see which team would get to enter last in the Elimination Chamber match tomorrow night for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships. Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode emerged victorious.

As far as the Elimination Chamber PPV goes, here is the updated card:

• Elimination Chamber Match For A WWE RAW Women's Championship Match at WrestleMania
  Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka vs. Natalya vs. Liv Morgan vs. Ruby Riott vs. Sarah Logan
• WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
  Braun Strowman (c)vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, Cesaro and Sami Zayn
• WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship Elimination Chamber Match
  The Miz & John Morrison (c) vs. The New Day vs. The Usos vs. Heavy Machinery vs. Lucha House Party vs. Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode
• WWE RAW Tag Team Championship Match
  The Street Profits (c) vs. Seth Rollins & Murphy
• No DQ Match
  AJ Styles vs. Aleister Black
• WWE United States Championship Match
  Andrade (c) vs. Humberto Carrillo
• Drew Gulak vs. Daniel Bryan