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WWE News: Small Decrease For SmackDown Live Rating, Falls In Top 5 (9/4/18)
This week’s Labor Day edition of Monday Night RAW saw a minor decrease in ratings and up against College Football, dropped down in the Cable Top 150 Rankings even with special appearances by The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. With no legends scheduled for SmackDown Live the following night, would they see the same results.
The answer this week is “Yes”, as the rating for the blue brand comes in at a 2.319, a decrease of 1.3% from last week. This is now the second week in a row that SmackDown Live’s rating has trended downward, even though it’s only a minor slide for this week. Here’s the last four weeks of SmackDown Live ratings:
- August 14th:Â 2.189
- August 21st:Â 2.437
- August 28th:Â 2.350
- September 4th:Â 2.319
With the premiere of a show that WWE was actually promoting during their last pay-per-view SummerSlam on Tuesday, SmackDown Live’s Cable Top 150 Ranking for the 18-49 demographic falls out of the top spot for the first time in five weeks. Here’s this week’s top five:
- Mayans MC – FX – 1.05
- The Bobby Brown Story – BET – 1.01
- SmackDown Live – USA Network – 0.77
- The Purge – USA Network – 0.55
- The Challenge: Final Reckoning – MTV – 0.48
EA’s Take:Â A really similar situation to RAW this week for the second week in a row, except RAW was facing a relative ratings juggernaut in College Football. This week’s blue brand again feels like the better show to me, but that’s never made any difference compared to what RAW gets on a weekly basis. I obviously did not catch Mayans MC, so I couldn’t tell you if it’s any good or will be able to maintain its hold in the 18-49 demographic. So I’d at least expect SmackDown Live to move up to number two next week at worst, depending on what kind of season/series premieres come. The funny thing for the blue brand this week is, they actually did .02 better in that department than last. It just all comes down to the competition.
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Did your picks win points?
The AEW Continental Classic is underway, with almost everyone competing. Check in here if you haven’t seen the winners and losers of week 1!
Here are your Gold League standings!
- Jon Moxley: 1-0, 3 points
- Swerve Strickland: 1-0, 3 points
- Jay White: 1-0, 3 points
- Rush: 0-1, 0 points
- Mark Briscoe: 0-1, 0 points.
- Jay Lethal: 0-1, 0 points
Here are your Blue League standings!
- Brody King: 1-0, 3 points
- Claudio Castagnoli: 1-0, 3 points
- Daniel Garcia: 0-1, 0 points
- Eddie Kingston: 0-1, 0 points
- Bryan Danielson: Yet to Compete
- Andrade El Idolo: Yet to Compete
My Thoughts:
Nothing too crazy, nothing too wild, this tournament only just got started. The only disappointing point is that they could not get Bryan “cleared to compete” Saturday night. Not sure how much of that is shoot given the bad eye, but this was kinda the problem of wanting him in the tournament over tons of other choices. Bryan wants to face Okada for WrestleKingdom 18, how is Bryan supposed to do that at his best if he’s also gonna be in a round robin, doing five top level matches in about as many weeks? And it takes away from Andrade being able to do something. Also a little surprised we didn’t even hear from Andrade on Saturday.
Now as we heard on Saturday, round two’s matches are set. Gold League will see Mark Briscoe VS Rush, White VS Swerve, and of course, Moxley VS Lethal. Nice variety there, a couple 0-1 guys facing off, as well as two 1-0 guys, and then 1-0 VS 0-1. No offense to Lethal, but he feels like an 0-2 going up against Moxley. Hard to call the other ones but that’s the fun of it. Meanwhile, Blue League sees Brody VS Claudio in a showdown to be 2-0, then Bryan and Andrade finally jump in, Bryan against Eddie and Andrade against Garcia. Sadly, feels like Eddie and Garcia are going 0-2, no way Tony Khan is booking Bryan and Andrade to lose their first shots.
In fact, that could be half the reason they did wait on those two, that’s almost too good for just a first round opener. But I still would’ve done it, same as NJPW does stuff like that for round robins, which this is all modeled after anyway.
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Tony Khan Reveals the Blue and Gold “Leagues!”
Originally livestreamed, Tony Khan and Tony Schiavone officially announced the twelve total entrants and divided them into the two round robin blocks known as the “Blue League” and “Gold League.” If you don’t feel like sifting through the almost 30 minute video, the groups are:
Blue League
- Bryan Danielson
- Andrade El Idolo
- Brody King
- Claudio Castagnoli
- Daniel Garcia
- Eddie Kingston
Gold League
- Jon Moxley
- Swerve Strickland
- Rush
- Mark Briscoe
- Jay Lethal
- Jay White
Tony Khan also explains the rules for the Continental Classic:
- Every match has a 20 minute time limit
- The winner of each match earns 3 points, losers earn 0, 1 point for a draw
- EVERYONE ELSE is banned from ringside for true 1v1 action
Eddie Kingston also joined the selection special as his “life’s work” is on the line in this tournament, both the ROH World Championship and NJPW Strong Openweight Championship on the line as part of the modern day North American Triple Crown Eddie, Tony Khan, AEW, ROH and NJPW are looking to create together. Gold League competes tonight on Dynamite while Blue League will have their start this Saturday on Collision. Look for more articles like this one to keep up with the Continental Classic standings over the next six weeks of tournament action!
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