As expected, SmackDown drew a larger audience than AEW Rampage on Friday night for its 2 and a half-hour "Supersized" show. With a total of 866,000 viewers compared to AEW's 578,000, no one was massively surprised by this, but the total number of people watching is nowhere near as important as those key 18-49 demographic numbers.
Advertisers consider people in that group to be the ones willing to pay for what they see in commercials, thereby making them extremely valuable for shows like these (especially when it comes to securing lucrative TV deals).
The big news here is that AEW Rampage and SmackDown drew with a 0.24 in 18-49. However, for the thirty minutes they went head-to-head, Rampage won the night with 328,000 vs. 282,500 in that demo. That's massive, especially as the shows were on equal footing this week both being on cable.
CM Punk vs. Matt Sydal outdrew Sasha Banks vs. SmackDown Women's Champion Becky Lynch, while commercials and Ruby Soho vs. The Bunny ended up topping Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar's contract signing.
As you can see below, this had caused quite the stir backstage in WWE. AEW President Tony Khan, meanwhile, definitely appears to be enjoying his big win.