How Did This Week's WWE SmackDown Live Do In The Ratings?

Just a couple of weeks before WWE SmackDown moves to the USA Network permanently, WWE held a special live edition of the show on Tuesday evening. While shows that air outside of their normal time slot usually don't do well in the ratings due to viewer confusion, WWE promoted the live edition of SmackDown heavily during RAW this week so that their audience was well aware of the change in time and place for the show this week. The December 22nd live SmackDown ended up averaging 2.264 million viewers. This number is slightly down from last week's SmackDown audience, which was 2.332 million viewers. Even so, the 2.264 million viewers that tuned in for the special live Tuesday broadcast was the third largest audience the show has garnered since August 20th. Coming off a lackluster edition of RAW, expectations dropped considerably for SmackDown this week. However, the argument could be made that Tuesday's edition of SmackDown ended up being a more entertaining show than RAW. The broadcast was headlined by a triple threat match for the Intercontinental title, pitting Dean Ambrose against Kevin Owens and Dolph Ziggler in what turned out to be an excellent match. There was also a scary moment toward the end of the bout when Ambrose landed awkwardly on his neck, nearly seriously injuring himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjtli6TwcXs SmackDown returns to its typical Thursday night airing on the SyFy Channel next week, December 31st, before moving to the USA Network permanently on January 7th.