The July 21st edition of Friday Night SmackDown set a new record for WWE.
The show featured a major segment involving Universal Champion Roman Reigns and Jey Uso. The warring family members set out the rules for their upcoming title match at SummerSlam. Uso will challenge his cousin the Tribal Chief for the championship in the first-ever Tribal Combat match at the Premium Live Event.
The show also saw Rey Mysterio defeat Cameron Grimes, LA Knight and Sheamus in the United States Championship Invitational and will meet fellow LWO member Santos Escobar in next week’s final. Speaking of Escobar he defeated Austin Theory in a non-title match and Charlotte Flair beat Iyo Sky and was attacked by Asuka after the match.
Several NXT Stars, such as NXT Champion Carmelo Hayes, Women’s Champion Tiffany Stratton, Dragon Lee and Tony D’Angelo made appearances throughout the show. Shawn Michaels was also present to give his approval for the North American Championship match between Dominik Mysterio and Butch.
The main event match saw Dominik Mysterio make history when he become the first WWE superstar to headline RAW, NXT and SmackDown all within the same week when he successfully defended his title against the Brawling Brutes member.
WWE SmackDown Aired On FS1 Due To The Women’s World Cup Being Shown On Fox
The Twitter account TV Sports Ratings posted the show’s television ratings, which revealed it averaged 1.182 million viewers thus making it the highest-viewed episode of the show to air of FS1. The show was moved to FS1 last night due to the FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament being on Fox. The channel aired the United States’ opening match against Vietnam.
am told in the preliminary fast nationals WWE Smackdown on FS1 (due to World Cup) averaged 1.182million viewers on FS1. That’s up 31% vs. last FS1 episode. 448K for adults 18-49, up 37% vs. last FS1 episode
The last time the show aired on FS1 was on December 2nd, 2022. The episode averaged 902k viewers and 328k (0.25) in the 18-49 demographic.