Sasha Banks

Ratings were down for Friday night's episode of SmackDown on Fox, which featured a SmackDown Women's Championship match between Sasha Banks and Bayley.

According to Showbuzz Daily, this week's SmackDown averaged 2.209 million viewers in the overnight ratings on the heels of last week's show garnering 2.286 million viewers. Friday's SmackDown also did a 0.65 rating in the 18-49-year-old demographic, which was No. 1 for the night.

The most significant match or moment of SmackDown opened the show, as Banks defended the SmackDown Women's Championship against Bayley after beating Bayley for the title at Hell in a Cell two weeks ago.

Bayley tried to get inside Sasha's head by reminding her that she had never successfully defended a singles title on the main roster before, but Banks still managed to win a hard-fought and entertaining match by making Bayley tap out.

The Boss' celebration was short-lived, though, as Carmella made her long-awaited return and took Banks out with a superkick on the stage.

SmackDown's main event was a singles match between Jey Uso and Kevin Owens. Universal champion Roman Reigns got the match made because of his belief that Owens had disrespected Uso backstage.

It was a back-and-forth match until Reigns' music hit and distracted Owens, which allowed Uso to hit him with a low blow and then a splash off the ropes for the win. Reigns congratulated his cousin as SmackDown went off the air.

SmackDown also featured a few qualifying matches for the men's and women's Survivor Series elimination matches coming up later this month.

On the men's side, King Corbin beat Rey Mysterio and Seth Rollins defeated Otis to qualify, while Ruby Riott won a Triple Threat over Natalya and Zelina Vega to qualify for the women's team.

The dramatic storyline involving the Mysterio family and Murphy continued as well. After Murphy showed up at ringside for Rollins vs. Otis, distracted Otis and pledged allegiance to Rollins, Aalyah Mysterio yelled at Murphy.

While the optics looked bad, Murphy assured Aalyah that he knows what he is doing.

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In her first title defense since beating Bayley for the SmackDown Women's Championship at Hell in a Cell, Sasha Banks defeated her former friend Friday night to retain the title after getting the challenger to tap out to the Bank Statement.

Bayley nearly pulled off the win after hitting Banks with a Backstabber and belly-to-belly suplex combination:

However, Banks was simply too strong at the end of a match, and Bayley took a ton of punishment:

It was Carmella who ultimately got the last laugh, though, as she attacked the champion before she went to the back:

After several months of the two running roughshod over the SmackDown women's division and even imposing their will on Raw and NXT at times, their relationship exploded in September when Bayley turned on her former teammate.

The Role Model briefly put Banks on the shelf by injuring her neck with a steel chair, but The Boss worked her way back and challenged her rival to a Hell in a Cell match at the same-titled pay-per-view.

After initially refusing to sign the contract, Bayley was forced to do so when Banks attacked her and used a steel chair. Knowing the only way to stop the onslaught was to sign on the dotted line, she put pen to paper.

Banks and Bayley went on to have one of the best matches of the year in WWE at the PPV on Oct. 25 and arguably one of the greatest women's and Hell in a Cell matches in company history.

While Bayley pushed Banks to the limit, The Boss prevailed by making her opponent tap to the Bank Statement, thus becoming SmackDown women's champion for the first time and ending The Role Model's remarkable 380-day reign.

The win made Banks only the third Grand Slam women's champion in WWE history, joining Bayley and Asuka as the only Superstars to hold the NXT, Raw and SmackDown women's titles, as well as the WWE Women's Tag Team titles.

Banks celebrated her win on the following episode of SmackDown, but Bayley interrupted and made every attempt to get inside her former pal's head. She accurately pointed out The Boss had failed in her first title defense after each of her Raw title wins, which is an albatross she has carried throughout her career.

With Bayley poking and prodding her, Banks agreed to put the SmackDown title on the line at a weekly show rather than waiting for a future pay-per-view.

The Boss exorcised some demons by retaining Friday and cemented her champion vs. champion match against Raw women's champion Asuka at Survivor Series on Nov. 22, but one can only assume her rivalry with Bayley is far from over.

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The ratings for Friday night's episode of WWE SmackDown were up this week, when the show returned to Fox after a one-week hiatus on FS1.

According to Showbuzz Daily, Friday's SmackDown averaged 2.133 million viewers during its two-hour broadcast, which was up from last week's 881,000 on FS1 with Fox broadcasting the World series. SmackDown also did a 0.6 rating in the 18-49-year-old demographic, which was tied for No. 1 on the night.

SmackDown closed and opened with interaction between universal champion Roman Reigns and his cousin Jey Uso following their Hell in a Cell "I Quit" match at Sunday's Hell in a Cell pay-per-view.

Reigns gave Uso until the end of the night to "fall in line," but it didn't initially look as though Uso would be willing to do so, as he told Reigns he hated him.

In the main event of SmackDown, Uso faced Daniel Bryan for a spot on the SmackDown Men's Elimination Survivor Series team. Uso won the match, which prompted Reigns to enter the ring and await Jey's answer.

Jey told Reigns that he understood and agreed to follow him. In order to prove his loyalty to The Tribal Chief, Uso hit Bryan with a superkick, viciously beat him and concluded with a splash on Bryan through the announce table.

Earlier in the night, the first member of Team SmackDown in the men's elimination match was determined when Kevin Owens beat Dolph Ziggler to earn a spot.

The SmackDown Survivor Series Women's Elimination match also gained its first member when Bianca Belair defeated Natalya and Billie Kay in a Triple Threat match.

Another key moment on SmackDown was Sasha Banks speaking for the first time since she beat Bayley to win the SmackDown Women's Championship at Hell in a Cell.

Bayley predictably interrupted her and then challenged The Boss to a rematch for the title on next week's SmackDown. Banks accepted, meaning next week's episode will be anchored by a massive main event.

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WWE will once again pit the champions of Raw and SmackDown against one another at Survivor Series.

Unlike last year's Survivor Series, NXT won't be represented on the show. The pay-per-view will be headlined by WWE champion Randy Orton vs. Universal champion Roman Reigns and Raw Women's champion Asuka vs. SmackDown Women's champion Sasha Banks.

A traditional five-on-five elimination tag team match for the men's and women's divisions will be on the card as well.

Monday's edition of Raw featured a number of singles bouts to determine who would represent the show on the men's team. Keith Lee and AJ Styles have qualified so far.

On the women's side, tag team champions Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler said they were putting Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke on their squad. The fifth and final spot was up for grabs in a Fatal 4-Way that involved Lacey Evans, Lana, Nikki Cross and Peyton Royce. Lana came away victorious.

The SmackDown sides will presumably start coming together Friday.

WWE split Raw and SmackDown into separate brands in July 2016. Starting with Survivor Series 2017, the PPV adopted its current format, with the company advertising it as the one night when stars from the two shows cross paths. Of course, that hasn't always held true.

Survivor Series (Nov. 22) also falls a little more than a month after the most recent draft, so the new rosters haven't had much time to settle. Asuka and Banks, for example, crossed paths at SummerSlam in August.

But absent adding a new PPV to the calendar, Survivor Series is the most logical place for WWE to attempt to draw battle lines between its two biggest weekly programs.