SmackDown Live Live SmackDown Discussion thread, October 13th 2023: Season Premiere sees HHH & Roman Reigns feature

[Butters]

YEAH

 

[Sabretooth]

LA Knight

YEAH!

 

[Finishline]

I was completely swerved about Cena/Reigns at Crown Jewel. Made sense with the GOAT argument in Saudi Arabia

 

[Finishline]

But Cena putting the stamp of approval on LA Knight makes sense... can't wait for everyone to get upset at LA Knight losing in Saudi tho

 

[Deadd2009]

But Cena putting the stamp of approval on LA Knight makes sense... can't wait for everyone to get upset at LA Knight losing in Saudi tho

Only because people know how the company can and will book someone coming out of a title loss.

 

[Finishline]

Only because people know how the company can and will book someone coming out of a title loss.

Just LA Knight being in that moment will make him a star. Same with Jey Uso, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Cody Rhodes... four recent guys who Reigns has beaten and stayed in (or was elevated to) the main event scene.

LA Knight isn't the guy to end this historic reign for Roman. But this will be another moment of WWE saying "ah gotcha!" with the likes of Edge, Drew, Sami, and Cody all falling short. It's great storytelling. Also makes sure LA Knight is on the show and for the biggest match of his life.

By the time this reign ends, we'll have legitimate stars from it:
- Jey
- Solo
- Cody
- Sami
- Kevin Owens
- LA Knight (yeah)

And that's if we don't touch Bobby's new group or anyone in Judgment Day.

 

[Y2Jayne]

Really happy Aldis is going to be on TV.

 

[Dale]

They cooked with this show.

Honestly this whole melting pot they got going on with The Bloodline/Cena & Knight/Cody & Jey and now KO thrown into the mix after being drafted is awesome. That's leaving out Judgement Day & AJ and The Good Brothers when they come back too.

The Cody/Roman staredown aswell was just Really can't wait for that to pick back up.

 

[Death By Looch]

Well there's a base/idea for a PPV poster...

 

[Jimmy King]

Great show all around, no real complaints from me. I loved the stare down between Cody and Roman, and Roman being upset about all of these people on his show was great.

I can’t wait for Knight vs Reigns at Crown Jewel since that seems like where they heading. Cena acting like a cheerleader in the background when Knight was standing toe to toe with Roman was funny.

Loved the stuff with Triple H, Pearce, Dom, and Aldis. Not surprised with KO being the one traded to SmackDown for Jey to Raw since that was the rumor, I’m still not sure how I feel about splitting up him and Sami but I’ll wait and see how this goes.

Also, loved having Pretty Deadly back, YES BOY!

Jade and Charlotte

 

[Butters]

They probably figured this is a way to split them without one turning on the other

 

[Dale]

The tension now when Cody needs KO on the team for WarGames

 

[DammitC]

The Revolution is INDEED televised

 

[DammitC]

oops, sorry wrong chat

 

[Chris]

Friday night's season premiere episode of WWE SmackDown averaged 2.417 million viewers on Fox, up 4.2 percent from the previous week. It's the best audience total for the show since September 15.

SmackDown topped all of the broadcast networks with a 0.62 rating in the 18-49 demo. That's down 3.1 percent from last week and is the second-lowest rating for the show since September 8.

SmackDown's season premiere featured appearances by Roman Reigns, Paul "Triple H" Levesque, and John Cena. The show faced stronger-than-usual competition as the Stanford/Colorado college football game, featuring Coach Deion Sanders, topped all of television with a 1.01 rating in 18-49 and 3.288 million viewers overall. It aired after SmackDown on the East Coast but head-to-head in the west. It was season premiere week for regular network TV shows but nothing else drew more than a 0.40 rating in 18-49.

As compared to the same week in 2022, SmackDown was up 6.3 percent in overall viewers and up 14.8 percent in 18-49.

Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo ratings for SmackDown, as well as the 10-week averages in both categories. This week's show was up 4.9 percent in overall viewers but down 1.6 percent in 18-49 as compared to the recent averages.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/wwe-smackdown-viewership-up-18-49-rating-down-for-season-premiere