Dwayne Johnson (Black Adam, Fast X) has been stepping it up for WWE, according to Deadline. The number of viewers tuning in to Friday Night SmackDown has increased significantly since The Rock made his comeback to the ring in January. For the first quarter of 2024, the average demo audience has been approximately 900,000 viewers.
Compared to the first-quarter demo audience of the previous year, which averaged 778,000 viewers, that represents an increase of roughly 16%.
Deadline claims that Johnson isn’t the only one to blame for the increase. Although the WWE Hall of Famer returned to Smackdown in February, the show’s ratings have been strong since the start of the year.
So far this year, Smackdown has been very popular with the 18–49 age group. In fact, during its Friday primetime slot, the show has been the top broadcast and cable program for nine of the first ten weeks of the year. Smackdown trailed the Denver-Boston NBA game on January 19th in the ratings.
As opposed to that, in 2023, Smackdown only topped the demo four times in the first ten weeks of the season.
Whether or not Johnson enters the ring, Deadline claims that whenever he makes a comeback to WWE, he brings big numbers. There was a 23% increase in viewers for his September Smackdown appearance, which drew 2.6 million viewers.
In early February, Johnson faced off against Roman Reigns (The Wrong Missy, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw) in the WWE ring for the first time in ten years. Prior to both of them becoming movie stars, he had not engaged in the ring since squaring off with John Cena (Ricky Stanicky, Peacemaker, The Suicide Squad) in the WWE in 2013.
Johnson is scheduled to go head-to-head with Reigns in April as a part of the WrestleMania event. In February, The Rock returned and showed his seriousness with his wrestling attire reading “The People’s Champion,” according to Deadline. Reigns and The Rock stood in the ring in the ring sharing intimidating looks.
Reigns and Johnson haven’t been in the ring with each other since Johnson appeared in the 2015 Royal Rumble to help Reigns defeat Rusev with his signature move ‘The Spear.’
Below you can watch The Rock’s return: