SmackDown Live ratings have been a major issue for WWE since moving over to Fox on Friday nights, but things finally changed for the better this week.

According to ShowBuzz Daily, 2.605 million viewers tuned in for the first hour of last night's show, and 2.481 million for the second. This is a major jump from the 888,000 viewers for last week's episode.

The Oct. 4 SmackDown Fox premiere (which marked the show's 20th anniversary), had 3.920 million viewers for the first hour, and 3.818 million for the second. Things dropped significantly the following week. But after a sluggish month from a viewership standpoint, WWE was able to bounce back big time.

This is an amazing turnaround for the company, and Triple H and other officials should be thrilled with what they managed to put together on Friday night.

Many WWE superstars weren't able to make last night's show, having been stuck in Saudi Arabia due to a mechanical plane issue. While a handful of talents arranged separate flights home, WWE was still without most of its superstars for the SmackDown Live show.

Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman were able to take up time by piecing together a promo to open the show, and the SmackDown broadcast showed highlights of the Crown Jewel event for several minutes.

Related: NXT Invades, Makes History, Declares War On Raw And SmackDown

Plenty of NXT talents showed up to help put together a great show. Baszler appeared and attacked SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley following the latter's victory over Nikki Cross - while NXT Champion Adam Cole successfully defended his title over Daniel Bryan in the main event.

Triple H closed out the show with a plethora of NXT competitors in the ring, sending a message by proclaiming "We are NXT!"

Now Comes The Hard Part For WWE & Fox

It certainly helped that SmackDown didn't have to compete with the MLB postseason for playoff ratings. The month-long competition is over now, so there won't be any major sporting events that will compete with SmackDown on a weekly basis. Now comes the difficult part for WWE and Fox Executives: Building on this week's success and finding some consistency with their ratings.

Next: Brock Lesnar SmackDown Decision Teases Future Of Bray Wyatt In WWE