WWE SmackDown Gets Crushed by College Athletes Despite Randy Orton’s Big Return

The collegiate sports season is coming to a close. Last Friday, football fans saw the championship closing of a major NCAA Division 1 conference, Pac 12. As the conference’s football season was wrapping up, the college-level sports conference was able to defeat the leading wrestling promotion despite having Randy Orton‘s support on their side.

Randy Orton couldn’t save WWE’s viewer ratings

After more than a year of recovery, The Viper made his WWE return. This had plenty of wrestling and sports fans excited. Even though Orton was slated to appear on the blue brand the same night as Pac-12’s football championship, the sports enthusiasts chose the latter.

Pac-12, which was airing on ABC, secured around 6.73 million views around the time SmackDown was almost wrapped up at 9:30 PM. On the other hand, Fox, which was hosting the blue brand’s show, only had 2.05 million views.

Considering the difference in scale and power of the two institutions, we can see that it was a big win for the collegiate conference. Especially considering that Orton was a strong card that WWE played that night to attract viewers’ attention.

To retaliate in response, WWE applied a new tactic. The wrestling company collaborated with another collegiate conference to get back on ABC’s dominance on Friday night.

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Numerous WWE wrestlers were seen during the Big 12 Conference’s championship football match the next day. Even though this collaboration was announced before Pac-12 dominated SmackDown, it was still a powerful way of getting back at them.

WWE stars show up to support Big 12 championship

The collegiate conference had announced prior to their championship match that WWE stars would be one of the leading attractions at the final match between Oklahoma and Texas. The Stamford-based company even had a custom-made WWE belt with both logos of both teams on the title. This was to be given to the athlete who would play exceptionally well during the match from both teams.

WWE tried to get back at Pac-12’s dominance by associating with another collegiate conference. The promotion sent some of its well-recognized talents. These were names like The Undertaker, Drew McIntyre, Jade Cargill, Sheamus, and more.

The wrestling talents were all over the internet that day as a big attraction during the game. Although most fans were there to enjoy the football championship, seeing legends like Mark Calaway was a bonus for them.

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Could WWE have avoided SmackDown being ‘slammed down’ if they had made a similar pact with Pac-12?