“Smackdown Live” and Ric Flair Documentary Ratings

Woo-Blue! Last night was a big night for wrestling on television with an episode of “Smackdown Live” from England and a Ric Flair documentary as part of ESPN’s “30 For 30” series. Both of them were expected to draw in large audiences due to the special interest in the show’s main event and Flair in general. So how did the shows do?

According to 411mania.com, this week’s episode of “Smackdown Live” drew a .82 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 2.603 million viewers. These numbers are up 26% and 23% from last week’s Halloween episode, which drew a .65 rating and 2.119 million viewers. The Flair documentary drew a .91 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 1.831 million viewers, making it the most viewed cable original for the night.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a preview of the Flair special.

Don't miss ESPN's "30 for 30: The Nature Boy" tonight at 10/9 C

Opinion: The “Smackdown Live” audience going back up isn’t all that shocking as it went from a holiday special to a regular night with a huge main event. What interests me more is seeing the Flair special do so well. ESPN pushed it very hard and it paid off, which tells me that the veterans are still respected enough to make the fans care. I’m very glad to see it do so well and hopefully it leads to more wrestling related documentaries.

Which show did you like more? What did you think of the documentary? Let us kno win the comments below.