According to PWInsider, last week’s Smackdown did a 2.1 broadcast rating, with a 4.2 share. It went head-to-head with Saturday Night’s Main Event in some markets, including New York, so that may have had an effect on the rating.
Smackdown’s season premiere on The CW network will be September 22. With UPN ending earlier in September, there will be a couple of weeks where Smackdown is not televised in the U.S.
In other news, WWE.com, at least for this week if not longer, is posting Unlimited videos from RAW on Tuesdays, instead of airing them live, online, during the show. A video of Diva Search finalist Amy reacting to being voted off last night is already online.
Also according to WWE.com, Charlie Haas – who lost his brother Russ to heart problems a few years ago – consoled Randy Orton upon hearing about the death of the third-generation superstar’s grandfather. Also on WWE.com, Tim Duncan was at RAW, Maria broke her thumb during the weekend at a house show, and Ken Kennedy talks about his appearance at The CW’s Television Critics Association event (saying how he feels “The Runaway” with Donnie Wahlberg and Dustin Milligan will be a hit for the new network, and that both stars agree with him that “Matt Hardy sucks!”).
Prior to last night’s RAW, Rene Dupree won a dark match against a local jobber, (SPOILER ALERT) Val Venis beat a jobber on Heat, as did Cade & Murdoch, and in the main event, Gene Snitsky beat Rob Conway. After RAW, John Cena beat Edge in a non-title Street Fight with the STFU. (Spoilers according to PWInsider.)
