AEW Rampage last Friday draws lowest viewership yet despite advertised appearance of Punk and the Darby vs. Garcia main event

September 7, 2021

Last Friday’s (9/3) episode of AEW Rampage drew 696,000 viewers, the lowest viewership number yet, despite the advertised appearance of C.M. Punk. It drew a cable rating of 0.51, tied with the premiere episode on Aug. 13. The last two episodes since Punk’s debut three weeks ago drew lower numbers than the opening week before Punk arrived.

It drew a 0.30 rating in the 18-49 demographic, the lowest yet for the series. It previously drew 0.34 rating last week (a pre-taped episode without Punk), a 0.53 (the episode featuring Punk’s debut at United Center), and 0.31 (the premiere episode). It finished no. 2 on all of cable on Friday behind ESPN’s college football game.

The male 18-49 number last Friday was also the lowest yet for Rampage despite the hoopla of it being All Out weekend. It drew a 0.41, down from 0.48 for the pre-taped episode last week, 0.72 for Punk’s debut, and 0.42 for the premiere.

In the younger male 18-34 dermo, it drew a 0.21, up from 0.17 last week, down from 0.42 for Punk’s debut, and below the premiere rating of 0.25.

There’s obviously not a lot to compare these numbers to when it comes to a 10-11 ET Friday timeslot, but Punk’s presence just objectively has not made a big difference to where expectations would be for viewrship on week four given the ratings week one. It’s going to be interesting to see what AEW chooses to feature on Dynamite this week versus saving and advertising for Rampage on Friday to see if one of the new acquisitions can give a bump to Rampage’s ratings again. It’s possible Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, and Ruby Soho could give Rampage a boost with the proper hype on Wednesday’s Dynamite.