WWE’s Friday Night SmackDown smashed ratings records with the return of John Cena.
Cena tag-teamed with Kevin Owens to defeat Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn, drawing 2.63M total viewers on December 30. It was the most-watched episode of SmackDown since Christmas Day in 2020 when an NFL lead-in earned the franchise an audience of 3.3M.
Viewership was up about 11% from the previous week’s episode.
Friday’s episode also was the largest audience in the key 18-49 demographic since September 10, 2021, with 842,000 total demo viewers tuning in. In the demo, SmackDown was up 17% week-over-week.
So, WWE closed 2022 with huge ratings as the John Cena-Roman Reigns tag-team match delivered the biggest viewership for WWE’s Friday Night SmackDown on Fox in over two years.
The new season of Friday Night SmackDown debuted October 7 on Fox. It has averaged about 2.3M total viewers, which is up 6% versus the same time frame year-over-year.