10 Anti-AEW Moves WWE Made Out Of Spite
2. Supersized SmackDown
WWE knew it was in for a tough ratings night on 15 October, when SmackDown was pre-empted from FOX to FS1 due to Major League Baseball coverage. FS1, a more obscure and harder-to-find channel than SmackDown's usual home, had hosted notable viewership drops in the past, including one from 2.210 million to 1.033 million in December 2020. A similar one-week decline was to be expired this time around.
A transparent attempt at saving face and doing what they thought would ensure SmackDown stayed above AEW Rampage in the key 18-49 demographic. WWE "Supersized" SmackDown, adding an extra 30 minutes, commercial-free, to go head-to-head with AEW's secondary product. They loaded it with stars, too. Sasha Banks has been a proven quarter-hour ratings draw for years. She wrestled Becky Lynch on the extra half-hour, which also featured WWE's two biggest male stars, Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, in a contract signing.
Beyond attempting to stifle AEW, there was no reason for SmackDown's extra half-hour.
It backfired.
Rampage's 313,000 P18-49 viewers were just one short of SmackDown's 314,000 across the full broadcasts, but the extra 30 minutes - with Banks, Lynch, Reigns, and Lesnar - was AEW's. SmackDown was outdone 328,000 to 285,000 across that period.
And yet WWE came back for more...