WWE SmackDown On Fox Drops Nearly 1 Million Viewers From Last Week

One had to assume there'd be a mighty drop in viewership for the second episode of WWE SmackDown on FOX, without Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, as well as the very notion of a premiere episode, to spike numbers.

Indeed,

reports that the October 11 edition of WWE SmackDown managed 2.898 million viewers, down over 25 percent from the 3.869 million that watched the FOX premiere.

Overall, the show-to-show drop was 971,000 viewers.

In defense of the drop, last week's SmackDown was the most-watched WWE broadcast in 18 months (since the post-WrestleMania 34 show), so falling from such a relatively-lofty number was almost inevitable.

The October 11 show also managed a 0.95 rating in the 18-49 demographic, making it the highest-rated primetime show in that demographic for the night, beating the fare on ABC, CBS, NBC, and The CW Network.

The two hours of the show didn't reveal any significant drop-off through the night, either. Hour one averaged 2.925 million viewers, while hour two was good for 2.872 million.

Friday's edition of WWE SmackDown revealed the

, and saw Bayley, new attitude and all,

from Charlotte Flair.