John Cena’s return boosts WWE SmackDown to best viewership in two years

Friday’s WWE SmackDown, which featured the in-ring return of John Cena, averaged 2.629 million viewers on Fox, up 10.6 percent from the previous week. Aside from the Christmas Day episode in 2020 (which had an NFL lead-in), it’s the largest audience total for SmackDown since October 11, 2019, which was the second-ever episode on Fox.

SmackDown topped all of network television with a 0.64 rating in the 18-49 demo, up 16.4 percent from last week. That’s tied for SmackDown’s best rating in that category for 2022.

SmackDown was the seventh-highest rated show on TV in the 18-49 demo, behind college football games and related programming on ESPN. SmackDown was fifth on network TV in terms of total viewers, which is higher than the show usually ranks. It also led network TV with a 0.44 rating in the 18-34 demo.

Year-over-year comparisons are not relevant since last year’s SmackDown at this time aired on New Year’s Eve on FS1 and was a “Best Of” episode that did the lowest numbers in show history.

Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo ratings for SmackDown, along with the 10-week averages in both categories. This week’s show was up 17.5 percent in total viewers and up 18.5 percent in 18-49 as compared to the recent averages.