WWE News: Fantastic news for WWE regarding Kevin Owens led SmackDown Live
What's the story?
There's some great news for WWE's SmackDown Live as we head ever closer to the move over to Fox. That's because this week's ratings for the post-Extreme Rules SmackDown were the highest they've been since Apri,l which is a good sign that WWE's television viewer numbers are heading in the right direction.
In case you didn't know...
WWE TV ratings have been reaching record low levels over the last few months, but seems to have stabilized a little bit of late. This week's Monday Night RAW drew 2.45 million viewers, which was up 4% from last week.
RAW featured a ten man battle royal to determine Brock Lesnar's first challenger since he won the Universal Title at Extreme Rules by cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase. The man Lesnar dethroned the night before, Seth Rollins, won and will go on to face him at SummerSlam.
The heart of the matter
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter posted the SmackDown ratings for this week's episode and it's good news for WWE, with the show netting a viewership average of 2.122 viewers.
This is particularly good because it's up 15% from last week's episode, making it the highest viewership rating for SmackDown since the April 16th Superstar Shakeup episode. Meltzer also added that it's one of the largest one week increase since SmackDown moved to Tuesday nights, with October 18th last year the last time this happened.
SmackDown was advertised with Shane McMahon holding the first ever SmackDown Live Town Hall as its hook, but also has a hot story line right now with Kevin Owens raging against the machine that is "The Best in the World" Shane McMahon.
What's next?
A voice-of-the-people babyface leading the charge against a McMahon family heel is classic wrestling storytelling 101 for WWE, and it never fails to achieve results. This is surely good news for Owens whose push seems safe off the back of these viewing figures.