WWE SmackDown sees a drop in viewership for the July 15th episode

WWE SmackDown has seen viewership fall below two million for the July 15th episode.

This week's edition of Friday Night SmackDown kicked off with a war of words between Happy Corbin and Pat McAfee. The two will face each other at SummerSlam.

New SmackDown Women's Champion Liv Morgan competed against Natalya in a winning effort. Mr. Money In The Bank Theory also went one-on-one with the 2022 Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal Winner Madcap Moss. The aforementioned Theory was interrupted by Sami Zayn and The Usos.

Ratings for the show will be disappointing for those behind the scenes as the overall viewership falls below 2 million viewers. According to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics, SmackDown drew in around 1.914million viewers and scored a 0.44 in the key 18-49 demographic. WWE SmackDown was number four on all television that evening.

WWE Smackdown, Friday on Fox (8-10pm):
1,914,000 viewers
P18-49 rating: 0.44

AEW Rampage on TNT (10-11pm):
476,000 viewers
P18-49 rating: 0.16
📊 patreon.com/wrestlenomics https://t.co/JnuURzKHWu

For comparison, Thurston noted that the NBA finals, airing at the same time, scored around 12 million viewers overall and did a 3.63 in the key demo.

In case you missed it, you can check out the SmackDown results here.

WWE SmackDown not going to be TV-14

WWE caught the attention of both fans and the media at the end of last week when they announced that their programming would no longer be rated TV-PG.

The company will instead return Monday Night RAW to TV-14. WWE operated under these guidelines for many years, including during the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression eras.

There was a memo within USA Network that went out this morning regarding WWE Raw changing to TV-14 on July 18th.Apparently that was sent out prematurely and the day was not finalized.

The changes, however, do not seem to be affecting SmackDown, which airs on FOX. RAW airs on the USA Network where a shift in content is reported to be taking place.

It will be interesting to see if WWE SmackDown can bounce back from this rating drop.