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What's the story?
This week's RAW was an emotional one for the WWE Universe as well as the WWE Superstars, as Roman Reigns announced that he was diagnosed with leukaemia and will be stepping away from the ring.
His announcement drew a lot of audience, as RAW recorded an increase in viewership from last week as 2.548 million viewers tuned in to his sad announcement.
Also Read: Best And Worst of SmackDown Live- 23 Oct, 2018
But, the same cannot be said about SmackDown Live, as it witnessed one of the lowest viewership figures since switching to Tuesday nights.
In case you didn't know...
On this week's SmackDown Live, we witnessed a rematch from last week's SD1000 show as The Usos faced off against AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan, the latter losing once again, and then arguing about who was to blame for the loss, backstage.
We also saw a match between Rey Mysterio and The Miz, following a Miz TV segment; Mysterio defeated The Miz in the singles match.
Randy Orton and Jeff Hardy clashed in the main event of the match with Orton picking up the win.
The heart of the matter
Just 2.087 million viewers tuned in to watch SmackDown Live this week, which was 18% lower than last week's viewership numbers (2.545 million viewers). (Thanks to WrestlingInc for the numbers)
Also Read: The biggest winners and losers of last night's SmackDown (October 23)
This week's numbers come as surprise considering the strong viewership numbers on RAW this past week, while SmackDown Live beat RAW for only the second time in viewership numbers last week, which was also SmackDown's 1000th episode.
What's next?
SmackDown Live needs an exciting rivalry at the top as the Styles-Bryan possible feud is a slowburn. Perhaps the blue brand will pick up steam as we build towards Survivor Series.
