The Superstars of WWE may need returned to america for the June 12 episode of “WWE SmackDown,” but that did not stop them from making big strides towards one other trip abroad as WWE Night of Champions 2026 in Saudi Arabia edges ever closer. Jey Uso and Charlotte Flair advanced to the semi-finals of the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments. Rey Fenix successfully defended his AAA World Cruiserweight Championship against Axiom, and tensions continued to construct between Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn ahead of Rhodes’ Undisputed WWE Championship defense against GUNTHER next week, where Zayn will act because the special guest referee.
Despite all of that motion, the tv rankings didn’t bode well for “SmackDown” as Wrestlenomics, with data provided by The Programming Insider, have confirmed that the June 12 episode of “SmackDown” averaged 1,038,000 viewers. This marks a 5% drop from the previous week’s 1,089,000 viewers, a ten% drop in comparison with the trailing 4 week average of 1,157,000 viewers, and is the bottom average viewership WWE’s blue brand has earned because the show dropped below a million viewers back in January.
There was more bad news within the 18-49 demographic as “SmackDown” posted a 0.20 number, marking a 17% drop from the 0.24 posted seven days earlier. 0.20 can also be 20% below the trailing 4 week average of 0.25, and is just not only the bottom number “SmackDown” has posted within the demographic to this point in 2026, but can also be the bottom number because the episode that aired on Halloween in 2025. Despite these numbers, “SmackDown” did rank second for the night within the prime time cable rankings, only being beaten by the College World Series on ESPN. Nonetheless, the largest reason why “SmackDown” and lots of other shows took a giant hit on Friday night was america’ first match within the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which kicked off while “SmackDown” was going down, and ended up garnering over 18 million viewers on FOX.