SmackDown's 1000th episode occurred last Tuesday, and it included title changes, returns and heel turns. 

Whilst not featuring the star power that was shown on Raw 1000 back in 2012, or the 25th anniversary special of the Monday night show in January 2018, it was still a fun event that mixed the current roster in with elements of the past.

The reunion of Evolution was probably the best moment of the night, in what was Batista's first appearance on WWE programming in over four years.

And the seeds were planted for a major match down-the-line with Triple H, maybe at WrestleMania.

The Bar also won the Tag Team Championships from The New Day, after some assistance from the Big Show, and Rey Mysterio also returned for his first singles match since 2014, defeating Shinsuke Nakamura.

With all this going on, you'd think backstage the feeling would be all positive, right?

Wrong.

According to Rajah, the discussions coming out of the show have all been to do with ratings, which are seen as pretty important in the television industry.

It was revealed on Wednesday that 2.545 million people tuned in to watch the historic episode in the United States, and there's been 12 editions of SmackDown in 2018 with a higher viewership.

Despite defeating Raw this week, those kind of numbers aren't promising whatsoever, especially as so many returning faces, the ones who are meant to put the butts in seats, were advertised in advance.

Putting it into perspective, Raw's 25th anniversary special drew over 4.5 million fans to the product for the evening, hence the company dissatisfaction with how things went.

With the huge-money move to Fox Sports next year, SmackDown are going to need to buck up the ideas before the switch, with the channel reportedly wanting more wrestling and less comedy.

They're going to need to do a lot more than that to win the fans round though.

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