Roman Reigns = Ratings? WWE SmackDown Viewership Goes Up

We are just a few weeks out from WWE SmackDown's move to the USA Network, and one of the final episodes of the show on SyFy improved their television viewership this week. Coming off a particularly strong edition of RAW on Monday evening (December 14th), this week's edition of SmackDown on December 17th drew an average of 2.332 million viewers. This was an increase for the show of late, as last week's December 10th broadcast pulled in an average of 2.133 million viewers. SmackDown was the most watched edition of the show in many months, garnering the largest audience since August 20th when the show averaged 2.434 million viewers. SmackDown, which is still largely a lameduck show these days that features a plethora of RAW highlights, was headlined by a main event featuring Kevin Owens taking on Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler won the match via disqualification following Owens launching an aggressive attack on Dolph outside the ring at the announce position. During the show's opening segment, SmackDown also featured the first television appearance by new WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns. Toward the end of his promo, Reigns was interrupted by former champion Sheamus and a group of security guards that tried to remove Reigns from the building (the storyline is that The Authority is investigating Reigns for his recent actions, and he's not allowed to perform until the investigation is finished). Reigns proceeded to destroy the security guards while an angered Sheamus looked on from the entrance ramp. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4x7CsLkRAk Next week's SmackDown from Des Moines, Iowa will receive a special live USA Network airing on Tuesday night. Already announced for the show is a match featuring WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day defending their belts against The Lucha Dragons.