This past Friday night on SmackDown saw two mammoth WrestleMania matches set up.Firstly, WWE Hall of Famer Goldberg arrived in Boston as the new Universal Champion, having defeated 'The Fiend' Bray Wyatt at Super ShowDown the night before.And his opponent for Tampa has already been confirmed - there's no need for a number-one contenders match inside the Elimination Chamber as Roman Reigns will be the man to take him on.But there's a man who has been the cornerstone of WWE since 2005 that doesn't make it to the shows much anymore, as he has moved his talents on to Hollywood and will soon be a big part of the Fast & Furious series.That is of course John Cena, and the 16-time world champion returned to his home state of Massachusetts this past week to address his future with just over five weeks until WWE head to Tampa for WrestleMania.But he stated to the fans that WrestleMania this year should go on without John Cena as he believed in the 'future of the company', and that his appearance in Boston wasn't goodbye forever, but goodbye 'for now'.As he was leaving though, he was interrupted by Wyatt, who duly issued a WrestleMania challenge via finger-point to the sign, and with a doff of the cap, Cena confirmed that match to be happening.

And it looks like Cena's return brought a number of people in from the cold.

The official ratings from the United States show that SmackDown saw its highest-viewed episode of the year so far, with 2.72 million viewers tuning in.

That was up from the 2.49 million that tuned-in for the final episode before Super ShowDown, and trumps the previous 2020 high of 2.58 million on January 17.

There's usually a bump on the Road to WrestleMania, but with the negative reaction coming out of the Saudi Arabia show, things could've looked a lot worse for WWE numbers-wise.

SmackDown though has overtaken Raw as the most watched weekly WWE show, which is averaging around 2.3 million views a week in 2020 compared to the blue brand's 2.51 million.

It's by no means anywhere near what they were doing this time five years ago, where Raw was hitting four million views on the road to Mania 31 - but it's a start and more-than-likely John Cena is the reason.