Latest WWE SmackDown Overnight Ratings Revealed

This week's Friday Night SmackDown on FOX brought in an average of 2.003 million viewers overnight, according to Showbuzz Daily.

The first hour of the show drew 2.036 million viewers, while hour two saw a drop to 1.969 million. On top of this overnight average, SmackDown also scored a 0.5 in the always-important 18-49 demographic, meaning the show took the #3 spot on the night. With a score of 0.8 in the same demo, Shark Tank took #1 spot.

If this overnight rating does indeed hold up when the final ratings are released on Monday, the latest show will have seen a drop of 0.5% from the previous week's episode which brought in 2.013 million viewers on average and scored 0.53 in the 18-49 demo.

Friday's edition of the blue show saw Big E successfully defend his Intercontinental Championship against Apollo Crews (eventually), The Street Profits lose their SmackDown Tag Team Championships to Dolph Ziggler and Bobby Roode, and a number of stars announce themselves as competitors in the upcoming men's and women's Royal Rumble matches.

Yet, the key talking point coming out of the show was no doubt the Gauntlet match involving Rey Mysterio, Sami Zayn, Shinsuke Nakamura, Baron Corbin, Daniel Bryan, and the surprising inclusion of on-air authority figure Adam Pearce. Thanks to some Roman Reigns meddling, Pearce would dramatically win the match and will now face 'The Tribal Chief' for the Universal Championship at the January 31 Rumble event.

Needless to say, fans may have a reason or two to tune into next week's show...