Be warned - whenever WWE blatantly performs one of their P.R. hits, it's almost always a red flag that they are either attempting to bury one story or get ahead of another. In this case, WWE knew that Smackdown did not fare well on Friday night, and were attempting to set the narrative that they were instead "neck and neck" (the verbiage each tweet touting the numbers used, verbiage obviously pushed by P.R.) with the NFL Draft. The goal was to get that repeated all weekend long, so that when the actual rating dropped on Monday, the narrative that Smackdown was (say it with me) "neck and neck", would have already been set, leading people to believe that WWE was on par ratings wise with the NFL, and getting ahead of the fact that Smackdown was actually down big vs the week prior, down big year over year, and in fact, did their lowest numbers of 2024. This is the game, and they play it all the time. On Saturday, WWE made sure you knew that the fast national estimates looked favorable, at least on the surface. Here is what they sent to various wrestling media outlets, information that was not publicly available as of Saturday afternoon when the outlets shared it, proving it was WWE who provided it:

It should also be noted that the NFL Draft started one hour earlier than Smackdown, meaning Smackdown mostly went head to head with Round 3 of the draft, as opposed to Round 2, which typically averages more viewers.

What WWE P.R. wants you to think: Smackdown went "neck and neck" with the mighty NFL Draft

What actually happened: Smackdown got smoked by the NFL Draft 1.37 - 0.58 in the demo, was beaten by nearly 3M total viewers, was down 8% vs last year, down 11%-16% vs the last four weeks, did its worst viewership of the year, and was down over 13% vs the same show comp last year going against weaker NFL Draft numbers.

Be media literate. Spot the red flags. Question sources. Always be wary of WWE P.R., always think about what they are trying to get ahead of or cover up