WWE Smackdown Dips Slightly, AEW Rampage Sees Strong Rise

Welcome back to another edition of the weekend wrestling ratings with WWE Smackdown and AEW Rampage. It has been a while since we have looked at the ratings for these shows due to Rampage being flexed out of its normal time. Both shows were back to their normal times with Smackdown being live and Rampage being taped.

Last week’s Smackdown number was very good coming off Wrestlemania. The show was viewed by 2,359,000 million people and did .61 which is about 796,000 people in the 18-49 demo. This was the highest number for Smackdown since September 10th. This week’s edition of WWE Smackdown was viewed by 2,230,000 million people and did a .60 in the 18-49 which is about 788,000 people. Smackdown was rated number two in the demo last week and stayed strong being number one on network TV and number two between network and cable according to Showbuzzdaily.com.

WWE Smackdown last week Friday on Fox, 8-10pm:
2,230,000 viewers
P18-49: 0.60 (788,000)

AEW Rampage on TNT, 10-11pm:
600,000 viewers
P18-49: 0.25 (328,000)

Rampage’s highest P18-49 since Oct 1, highest total since Jan 28.

More demos & analysis: https://t.co/1SscdBCpr8 pic.twitter.com/G9e2MZfX0u

— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) April 11, 2022

This week’s episode was a typical episode of Smackdown. The feud between Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair continued. Ronda needs some mic help. Regardless they set up an I Quit match. There were some debuts on Smackdown from NXT. First, Raquel Gonzalez is up and is now Raquel Rodriguez. Second, two members of Imperium are up as well. Gunther and Marcel Barthel aka Ludwig Kaiser. Also, we got a Roman Reigns promo and it appears there is no when left for him to conquer. He wants the Usos to unify the tag team titles as well.

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Last AEW Rampage was viewed by 456,000 people and did .15 in the 18-49 demo which is about 193,000 people good for 18th on cable. Rampage was up from its worst rating ever as they were displaced because of NCAA basketball. This week’s show was viewed by 600,000 people and did .25 in the 18-49 demo which is about 388,000 people good for fourth on cable. AEW Rampage continues to rise each week. Still a tough timeslot. This was the best 18-49 demo since October 1st and the highest total since January 28th. Christmas night had a higher 18-49 demo at .26 but it had an earlier start of 9 pm.  Though this upcoming week’s episode will be on at 7 pm due to the NBA Playoffs starting.

This week’s AEW Rampage was an excellent show from start to finish. Trent Beretta took on Bryan Danielson to open things up. A very solid match. Then we saw Swever Strickland inaction followed by Red Velvet taking on Wilow Nightingale. Nightingale was getting huge support from the crowd. The main event saw a great match between Wheeler Yuta the ROH Pure champion taking on Jon Moxley. What a main event.