SmackDown Live's ratings have been pretty steady for a while now and this week's show actually increased from the post-Extreme Rules edition with a solid 2,340,000 viewers. As noted, that's up from last Tuesday's 2,293,000 viewers. It ranked fourth in the top 150 shows on cable and WWE must be very happy with these numbers, especially with SummerSlam right around the corner.
Fans no doubt tuned in for the reveal of AJ Styles' opponent at the PPV, someone we quickly learned would be his old TNA rival, Samoa Joe, when he attacked The Phenomenal One and choked him out.
SmackDown Live has been consistently better than RAW for a while now and so it's no wonder viewers are tuning in on a consistent basis when the quality of the product is so strong. It was another great show on Tuesday regardless as we got a killer promo from Randy Orton, a great match between Rusev and Andrade "Cien" Almas, and we even got to see James Ellsworth get fired. Finally!