The Superstars of WWE might have returned to the United States for the June 12 episode of “WWE SmackDown,” but that didn’t stop them from making big strides towards another 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 build between Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn ahead of Rhodes’ Undisputed WWE Championship defense against GUNTHER next week, where Zayn will act as the special guest referee.
Despite all of that action, the television ratings 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 10% drop compared to the trailing four week average of 1,157,000 viewers, and is the lowest average viewership WWE’s blue brand has earned since the show dropped below one million viewers back in January.
There was more bad news in 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 is also 20% below the trailing four week average of 0.25, and is not only the lowest number “SmackDown” has posted in the demographic so far in 2026, but is also the lowest number since the episode that aired on Halloween in 2025. Despite these numbers, “SmackDown” did rank second for the night in the prime time cable rankings, only being beaten by the College World Series on ESPN. However, the biggest reason why “SmackDown” and a lot of other shows took a big hit on Friday night was the United States’ first match in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which kicked off while “SmackDown” was taking place, and ended up garnering over 18 million viewers on FOX.
