All Elite Wrestling announced that former Smackdown and Impact Wrestling announcer Taz will be making a guest appearance on Dynamite live from Jacksonville, Florida on January 1.
Taz has already provided guest commentary for AEW Dark when the company held their show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although AEW has not said what Taz will be doing on Dynamite, it’s likely that he will be doing guest commentary as well.
“This #AEWDynamite show is loaded…its gonna be SICK! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in JAX as we kick it’ LIVE on @tntdrama,” Taz wrote in a tweet.
There will not be a live NXT going head-to-head with Dynamite next week and the company is presenting a loaded show for the first episode of the year. Tickets are still available for this Dynamite and are available from Ticketmaster.com.
The Christmas Eve episode of WWE Backstage did 153,000 viewers, up 58,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. This was the second most-watched episode of Backstage in its 11PM time slot, only behind CM Punk’s first appearance on the show back on November 19. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Andrade became the new United States champion last night after he defeated Rey Mysterio at the non-televised live event in Madison Square Garden during the annual post-Christmas show.
The finish to the near 15-minute match came when Mysterio first hit the 619 and then was about to finish Andrade with the frog splash, however, Andrade put his legs up as Mysterio flew and then hit his finishing move for the pin.
This is Andrade’s first title on the main roster. He was the NXT champion before being called up.
It was a short reign for Mysterio as he only held the title for a month.
Austin Theory and Shotzi Blackheart – two of WWE’s newest recruit – made their NXT television debut last night on the Christmas Day taped episode on USA Network.
Theory joined the WWE Performance Center in August of this year and the 22-year-old has already won several titles while wrestling on the independent scene, including winning the EVOLVE and WWN titles. Theory defeated Keith Lee, ending Lee’s 175-day reign as WWN champion at EVOLVE 103 and at EVOLVE 117 he won the EVOLVE title after he beat NXT’s Fabian Aichner and Roderick Strong.
Blackheart is also new to the WWE scene, having joined the WWE PC in October after William Regal offered her a contract at the EVOLVE 137 event. The California native has been wrestling professionally since 2015 and is the current SHINE Nova champion.
But both their debuts ended up in defeat, with Theory losing to Roderick Strong and Blackheart suffering a loss at the hands of Bianca Belair.
With no Slammy Awards given this year again it was up to the folks at WWE Backstage on FS1 to announce their own winners for the year. The panel revealed the winners during this week’s broadcast, anchored as always by Renee Young.
The Female Superstar of the Year went to Becky Lynch who had a tremendous year as “The Man,” even main eventing WrestleMania and for a short time held both the Raw and Smackdown Women’s titles at the same time.
Bray Wyatt won the Male Superstar of the Year and while the decision could be debatable, no one can deny that Wyatt has reinvented himself with The Fiend and has become one of the main Superstars on the WWE roster.
The New Day were announced as the Male Tag Team of the Year. With multiple tag team title wins to their name, the trio are certainly one of the most successful tag teams in the history of the WWE and their popularity remains sky high with the WWE Universe.
Asuka and Kairi Sane won the Women’s Tag Team of the Year with the Japanese duo recently kicking into high gear following their titles win. On their own, Asuka and Sane are tremendous and together, the Kabuki Warriors are currently at the top of the women’s tag team division.
The Street Profits won the Breakthrough Superstars of the Year. The former NXT Tag Team champions had some excellent matches this year and then started appearing during on Raw in backstage segments before being officially drafted to the red brand.
And last but not least, Kofi Kingston winning the WWE title at WrestleMania 35 won the Moment of the Year. It’s been an amazing year for Kingston, and much like Becky Lynch, the fans were solidly behind him. After over a decade with the company, Kingston finally got his chance to shine, winning the big one at WrestleMania.
On NXT last night’s it was announced that The Undisputed Era will be taking on Imperium in a massive eight-man tag team match during the Worlds Collide special on the eve of the Royal Rumble.
The two biggest factions in NXT and NXT UK will be going head-to-head for the first time ever in Houston in what surely is an NXT dream match. All members of The Undisputed Era are champions while WALTER currently holds the WWE United Kingdom title. The match will feature Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly versus Walter, Alexander Wolfe, Fabian Aichner, and Marcel Barthel.
Worlds Collide is replacing NXT Takeover during the Rumble weekend and will have matches pitting talent from NXT taking on talent from NXT UK. It will air live on the WWE Network on January 25.
The Fighting With My Family movie which tells the story of WWE Superstar Paige is now available to watch on Netflix in the United Kingdom.
The movie is only available in the UK Netflix catalog and cannot be accessed from any other country for now.
Fighting With My Family, which was released earlier this year, revolves around WWE Superstar Paige and her brother Zak who are ecstatic when they get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to try out for WWE. But when only Paige earns a spot in the competitive training program, she must leave her family and face this new, cut-throat world alone. Paige’s journey pushes her to dig deep, fight for her family, and ultimately prove to the world that what makes her different is the very thing that can make her a star.
The movie features Florence Pugh, Lena Headey, Jack Lowden, Nick Frost, Vince Vaughn, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the leading roles and it’s written and directed by Stephen Merchant. Seven Bucks Productions’ Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia served as producers on the film with Hiram Garcia serving as executive producer. Kevin Misher of Misher Films produced alongside WWE Studios and Michael Luisi in association with The Ink Factory.
It did $22,805,196 in box office revenue in the United States after 62 days in theaters.
NXT will have no AEW Dynamite as competition tonight but the Christmas Day broadcast that will air on USA Network will be a taped one.
Two matches that are being advertised are North American champion Roderick Strong defending the title against Austin Theory and Keith Lee and Lio Rush versus Damian Priest and Tony Nese. The first match was taped after the last NXT tapings while the second match was taped after Smackdown this past Friday. Another match, Shane Thorne vs Sean Maluta was also taped after NXT last week week but it’s not being advertised for tonight.
It’s unclear how WWE will fill two hours of NXT with just the two matches. The broadcast will run at its regular 8PM EST time slot.
All Elite Wrestling announced on Christmas Day that they will be running Dynamite from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Wednesday, March 25.
The massive arena hosts the WWE big shows as well so AEW will be hoping to fill a large portion of the 19,000-seater building. This will be the company’s first time in the tri-state area.
Tickets for this show will go on sale on Friday, January 24 at Noon ET with prices starting at just $25. Tickets will be available from AEWTix.com.
WWE personnel will be helping in recruiting new talent during the EVOLVE Recruitment Camp which will take place between January 3 and 5 in Port Richey, Florida.
WWE and EVOLVE has an evolving relationship, pun intended, which sees NXT stars appear at EVOLVE shows while also getting “first dibs” at most EVOLVE talent when they’re ready to step up. EVOLVE’s Vice President of Creative and Talent Relations, Gabe Sapolsky, is also a WWE creative consultant and works with the NXT brand and the WWE Performance Center.
This three-day camp, aimed at wrestlers, managers, and referees, will have WWE Performance Center coaches Terry Taylor, Steve Corino, Norman Smiley, and Sean Hayes, NXT referee DA Brewer, NXT North American champion Roderick Strong, and NXT producer Jeremy Borash all attending trying to scout the next wrestling superstar.
The taped episode of Monday Night Raw drew only 1,835,000 viewers on average this week, the second-least watched show in modern-day era. That is down 218,000 viewers from last week.
Raw started with 1,955,000 viewers in the first hour, then dropped to 1,864,000 viewers in the second hour, and finished the night with just 1,686,000 viewers for the third hour. ESPN’s NFL coverage had over 13 million viewers head-to-head.
Raw was #4, #6, and #9 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and #12 overall for the night on cable in viewers. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Dwayne Johnson’s latest movie, Jumanji: The Next Level, dropped to the second place in the box office chart this past weekend after the release of the new Star Wars movie.
Jumanji had a $26.5 million weekend from 4,227 theaters across the United States, a drop of 55.3% from the first week. The movie now stands with $102,316,512 in box office receipts nationwide plus an additional $211,425,856 from overseas box office revenue according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.
Jumanji is currently at $313,742,368 in worldwide box office which is pretty good for two weeks. The previous Jumanji movie, titled Welcome to the Jungle, did over $900 million worldwide during its whole theatrical run.
Samoa Joe got his first taste of action last night on Raw for the first time since he suffered a thumb injury in September.
On Raw, Joe was attacked by the Authors of Pain after he refused to move from the commentary desk like his broadcast colleagues Vic Joseph and Jerry “The King” Lawler. At first, the situation was looking like it was going to be resolved in a friendly matter but Seth Rollins then gave the order to take down Joe and AOP drove him through the commentary table.
Since getting injured, Joe has been a frequent analyst on the WWE Backstage show on FS1 and then replaced Dio Maddin on commentary. He is not expected to hold his commentary gig once he gets back in the ring full time.
Maddin has since moved to the WWE Performance Center to resume his wrestling training and it is not clear who will be the permanent third member of the Raw commentary team moving forward.
It looks like AEW Executive Vice Presidents Nick and Matt Jackson of The Young Bucks have decided to take a break from the social media service Twitter, with both no longer active on their accounts…for now.
Nick has so far disabled his account and accessing his Twitter handle sends you to an error page while Matt’s account has been wiped completely with his account saying that he hasn’t tweeted yet.
The two were very active on social media for several years especially in the run up to the launch of All Elite Wrestling. But something has changed over the past few days and the brothers have decided to call it a day, at least for now.
WWE is selling an authentic WWE championship title for $4,999 on the WWE Shop website, listing it as the “official TV authentic” title.
As most probably know, the WWE titles that are used on television are different than any other title and they are carried by the production crew rather than the WWE Superstars who are champions. The Superstars carry their own replica but when it comes to television, everyone uses the real, super expensive titles instead.
The WWE title being sold for five grand features 383 hand-placed Cubic Zirconia, aluminum plates with 14k gold plating, a genuine leather strap, and weighs 7.5lbs. The strap is 51.5″ long and 11.5″ in height and fits a waist size of 47″.
Every plate curvature, dimension, and stone is identical to titles seen on WWE TV. The thickness of the plates surpass the standard replica versions of these replica titles. The main plate features of plate thickness of 11.5mm. The back of the title is identical to the ones seen on TV, as the main plate screws are covered with a second layer of leather backing.
These titles are created by Wildcat Championship Belts and you can order yours at http://w-o.it/wweshopcom.
Tonight’s Monday Night Raw was taped last week in Des Moines, Iowa, to give WWE Superstars a break for Christmas. Several matches were recorded during the tapings including three matches which were total squash against jobbers. In total, there were 11 matches which were taped although it’s unclear what will air on Raw during tonight’s broadcast.
The matches were Kevin Owens vs Mojo Rawley, Bobby Lashley vs Cedric Alexander, Drew McIntyre vs Zack Ryder, Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy in two matches versus two jobbers, Ricochet vs Tony Ness, Charlotte Flair vs Chelsea Green, The O.C. vs Randy Orton and The Viking Raiders, Eric Rowan in a match against another jobber, Rusev vs No Way Jose, and Rey Mysterio vs Seth Rollins.
Raw will be live again next Monday. Smackdown will air live both this week and next week as well while NXT will be airing taped episodes on Christmas and New Year’s day.
Just over 1,000 tickets remain available for NXT Takeover: Portland which will take place on Sunday, February 16 from the Moda Center.
The Moda Center holds nearly 20,000 seats and WWE will be using three quarters of the arena for this Takeover with the usual seats around the stage being blocked off. Tickets start at $30 and go all the way up to $500 for ringside. A handful of ringside seats still remain available. Tickets can be purchased from Ticketmaster.com.
This will be the first NXT Takeover to air on Sunday in the United States. The NXT UK Takeover in Blackpool in January will also air on Sunday as the company tests out a different day for the NXT specials.
There will be no Takeover during the Royal Rumble weekend but a Takeover at WrestleMania weekend will happen.
During the closing moments of this week’s Dynamite on TNT, the Dark Order and the Creepers attacked The Young Bucks, SCU, Kenny Omega, Cody and Dustin Rhodes and while the segment didn’t go over very well with fans, there was one particular moment caught on television which caused a lot of criticism.
During the brawl, one member of the Creepers was on top of Dustin Rhodes as he threw punches at him. The problem was that the punches were not even close to connecting and there was not much effort to make it at least look real.
The clip went viral and drew criticism from fans and wrestlers. An indie wrestler by the name of Arik Cannon said it was him who threw the punches and said that Dustin is a legend and he was already bleeding and was only trying to take care of him.
The problem is that Cannon was wrestling somewhere else that night and couldn’t have been the one behind the mask. Plus, Cannon is much larger physically than the masked Creeper who was on top of Dustin
Dustin Rhodes tweeted criticizing the punches, first writing, “It’s almost 2020, and I am embarrassed at what I just saw in the great business that I still protect to this day. Please learn how to punch. Or, better yet, come to my class that I hold weekly and I will teach you.” He then deleted the tweet when Cannon outed himself even though now it looks like Rhodes got played as well.
Friday Night Smackdown on FOX did a total of 2,414,000 viewers this week for the post-TLC show off hours 2,493,000 viewers and 2,336,000 viewers. It was up slightly by 76,000 viewers.
The show did top every other show in all key demographics but trailed almost all shows apart from three in terms of viewership. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
In an interview with Primera Hora in Puerto Rico, Primo Colon explained the circumstances surrounding him getting a Wellness Program violation and made it clear that he never failed a drug test.
Colon said that when the company asked him to undergo a drug test back in October, he was in Puerto Rico and that required him to fly to the United States. He offered to go to a local laboratory and submit whatever he needed to submit there and pay for it but told WWE he wasn’t going to fly back just to undergo a test. He added that WWE never contacted him back and only found out that he was suspended two months later.
Primo and Epico have not been used on WWE television or non-televised live event shows in many, many months although the two remain under contract. He said that his deal runs through October of next year.
While out from WWE, Primo and Epico have been working for the World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico.
Robert Roode was the other one who was suspended along with Primo and is also serving a 30-day suspension. WWE does not reveal the reason why they are suspended, but only mentions those who for them failed in some way or another.
