The July 14 episode of Friday Night Smackdown featuring a WWE Women's Championship match between champion Asuka and Bianca Belair averaged 2.309 Million viewership and a 0.62 rating (P18-49).

WWE promoted the matches in advance, particularly the women's title match, as they continue to build toward SummerSlam on Aug 5. One of the matches WWE seems to be setting up is a triple threat match with Asuka defending her title against Belair and Charlotte Flair at the premium live event next month. As such, the company decided to have the Asuka and Belair finish end with a disqualification to continue the storyline.

Another attraction for the show was the segment with Jey Uso, who had an in-ring confrontation with Solo Sikoa and Paul Heyman. This followed the July 7 episode, which had Uso challenge the Undisputed Universal WWE Champion Roman Reigns to a match. On Youtube, the Uso, Sikoa, and Heyman segment is the most-watched highlight from last week's episode, with over 1.4 million views.


Fans will see more of the rivalry between Uso and Reigns as WWE promoted that the champion will be on the July 21 episode to respond to the challenge. Reign's appearance may be to make his next title match against Uso official for SummerSlam, but it's unclear if a stipulation would be involved.

The July 14 episode also had Santos Escobar defeat AJ Styles, Grayson Waller, and Butch in a fatal four-way United States Championship Invitational match. This Friday, LA Knight, Rey Mysterio, Sheamus, and Cameron Grimes will compete in the same match format to determine who will face Escobar. This will determine who will face Austin Theory for the United States Championship, possibly at SummerSlam.

Jed I Goodman shared the Friday Night Smackdown viewership on Twitter, which showed that the July 14 episode was down from last week. The July 7 episode had an average viewership of 2.561 Million.


The rating for the upcoming episode of Friday Night Smackdown will be interesting, as WWE will have Reigns back on the show. The fatal four-way match is another attraction to the show, as fans have been showing their intrigue into Knight.

His highlight clips from the Friday Night Smackdown episode on Youtube over the last two weeks have been incredible. Besides the Uso segment on the July 14 episode, Knight's promo segment is the second most viewed highlight, with over 940,000 views. To put it into perspective, the third most viewed highlight from the episode on Youtube was the women's title match, with over 460,000 views.

It will be interesting to see if Knight's match helps bring in more intrigue for the upcoming Friday Night Smackdown. If so, WWE could have something special in him and look to put him in a more prominent role for future episodes.