— Last night’s episode of WWE SmackDown held up tolerably in the face of several season finales and a heavily-watched NBA Playoff games. The episode drew 2.528 million viewers and a 0.62 rating in the 18 – 49 demographic. Those numbers are down 1% and 6% from last week’s numbers, although it’s worth noting that the demo rating is the lowest since Smackdown moved to Thursdays.
The show was seventh for the night among cable shows behind the two NBA conference semifinals, the Sportscenter that followed those games, Lip Sync Battle, Girl Meets World and the NBA pre-game show.
— As noted earlier …. and take this for what it’s worth, because…well, consider the source. But according to Reddit user Falcon Arrow, who Reddit moderators have verified with digital and photographic proof of his insider status “as well as information that he otherwise could not know without being a legitimate insider,” Samoa Joe has signed a deal with WWE for at least two years and will be debuting at the end of NXT Takeover: Unstoppable.
As previously reported, Joe has been in discussions with the company since leaving TNA. The prevailing belief has been that he would begin in NXT instead of making a jump straight to the main roster.
In Joe-related news, he posted the following pic to Twitter today, suggesting that he’s been getting into shape:
