Impact Wrestling Draws Worst Viewership In Over A Decade

With Tribute to the Troops airing on the USA Network as part of WWE Week, WWE and Impact Wrestling went head-to-head in the ratings this past Thursday night. And the results weren’t good for Impact.

This week’s show averaged 161,000 viewers, which is the lowest number for a first-run episode of Impact since debuting on Pop TV in January 2016. This is also the show’s lowest number since the beginning of the Spike TV era in October 2005.

Viewership for Thursday’s show was even lower than the audience for the Thanksgiving edition of Impact, which did 169,000 viewers.

On Dec. 7, Impact drew 226,000 viewers, which was one of the lowest numbers in company history.

Impact changed nights from Tuesdays to Thursdays in the summer of 2016 to avoid going against SmackDown after WWE had announced its move to Tuesdays.

Tribute to the Troops averaged 1,401,000 viewers. That number is up from 2016 but lower than what it had done prior to last year.

Thursday’s show was headlined by Laurel Van Ness and Rosemary in the Finals of The Knockouts Championship Tournament, which resulted in Van Ness winning the Knockouts Championship.