John Cena and Nikki Bella Not Advertised for Smackdown Post-WrestleMania, WWE Fears Cena’s Time Off Could Hurt SD Live Attendance

– Following WrestleMania, WWE Superstar John Cena is currently not being advertised to appear on tonight’s edition of Smackdown. Additionally, his match at WrestleMania is expected to be his last WWE appearance over the next several months. WrestlingInc.com reports that Cena is taking time away from the ring to work on some movies and other projects outside of WWE. Additionally, Cena’s new fiancee, Nikki Bella, is now off the road and will reportedly only wrestle occasionally in the near future. Bella recently revealed she’s been dealing with a slight herniation in her neck above where she recently had neck surgery.

Currently, Cena and Bella are not on any WWE live event or PPV listings through this summer. Additionally, Cena is not listed for WWE SummerSlam either, which is set for Sunday, August 20. How this affects the bottom line of the Smackdown brand will be interesting. The Wrestling Observer recently reported that Smackdown’s live events routinely outdrew Raw live events in January and February after Cena returned to Smackdown during the holidays. However, Dave Meltzer said that before Cena came back to TV, “Raw was killing Smackdown in attendance.”

More specifically, the average live attendance for Raw events in January was 3,169 people, while Smackdown averaged 3,695 people. For February, Smackdown had an average attendance of 4,498, which was significantly higher than Raw’s 3,450. Meanwhile for TV events, Raw had a larger average audience with 7,760 fans. Smackdown’s January average was 4,580. For February, Smackdown’s TV event average attendance was higher than Raw with 8,625 fans, and Raw’s average was slightly lower with 8,600. So, the impression is that Cena taking time off could cause a hit to Smackdown’s house show and TV attendance.