Fightful is reporting through their Select service that former TNA Knockouts champion Jordynne Grace is set to wrap up her commitments with the company on January 19, which is the Genesis weekend.
Grace is set to face Tessa Blanchard on the pay-per-view that night to finalize her program and then she will be a free agent and expected to sign with WWE.
The timing is perfect for a Royal Rumble return, a match she was a surprise participant in last year.
The 28-year-old has been working for TNA since 2018 and was the first Knockouts Triple Crown winner, winning the Knockouts title, Knockouts Tag Team title, and the Digital Media title.
The Christmas episode of Dynamite on 34th Street drew 574,000 viewers this week, down 51,000 viewers from the prior week. In 18-49, Dynamite drew a 0.18, just 0.01 down from the previous show and was #2 on the top 50 cable chart for the night. This was the first time Dynamite aired on Christmas night and did similar to their November and December average, which should be considered a win. (Ratings credit: Programming Insider)
The WWE championship match for the Royal Rumble was announced last night on Smackdown and Kevin Owens will get yet another crack at the title.
During the final segment of Smackdown, Owens said that the match should not involve a referee that counts the finish after what happened to him at Saturday Night’s Main Event. Cody did not object and suggested the two face off in a ladder match.
Smackdown GM Nick Aldis signed off on the match and both Cody’s WWE Championship and the Winged Eagle WWE title which Owens took after SNME will be suspended above the ring, with the first person who snatches them will be declared the winner.
Owens continue to declare himself the true WWE champion and took out both Aldis and Rhodes at the end of the segment with his Winged Eagle title.
Apart from the two Royal Rumble matches, this is the only other match so far announced for the show.
Rampage’s final show will air tonight at 10PM ET on TNT, a broadcast which was taped last weekend at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.
The New Year’s Smash themed episode will feature four matches, with ROH champion Chris Jericho vs Anthony Bowens, AEW Tag Team champions Private Party vs Leo Sparrow and Alec Quest, Thunder Rosa vs Leila Grey, and Hook vs Nick Wayne.
This is the 177th episode of the Rampage series and after tonight, AEW will go back to two shows – Dynamite and Collision – unless another one is announced in the new year.
AEW today announced that Hall of Famers Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express will be appearing at two upcoming television shows in January.
The duo will be showing up at the Collision on January 4 live from the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina and the Dynamite on January 22 live from the Knoxville Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee.
This will not be their first time on AEW television as the former champions have already appeared in the past, doing angles with Santana and Ortiz and FTR several years ago.
They still occasionally wrestle on the indie circuit and make regular appearances at fan conventions.
The taped Christmas Eve episode of NXT this week drew 723,000 viewers, up 15,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast and the highest since October 8 which was the second NXT on CW with Randy Orton on the show. In 18-49 however, the rating continues to trend downward with a 0.14, down 0.02 from the prior week, signifying an older audience watching. (Ratings credit: Wrestlenomics)
NXT stars Arianna Grace and Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo announced their engagement today after a trip to Paris, France.
Lorenzo proposed to Grace in front of the Eiffel Tower where a large heart with roses and candles served as the backdrop in front of the iconic monument.
“Yes to forever. Last night was so perfect, and I am so in love. Excited to share… we are engaged!!!!!!!! Woooohoooo,” she wrote on Instagram.
Grace and Lorenzo, both 27, were the second WWE couple to announce their engagement this week after Maxxine Dupri and Anthony Luke.
Grace is the daughter of former WWE Superstar Santino Marella who is currently working with TNA Wrestling.
Fans at Madison Square Garden last night were treated to some comedic relief thanks to CM Punk in a towel.
Dominik Mysterio and Ludwig Kaiser jumped Damian Priest in the steel cage after the main event of the show which saw Gunther retain the WWE World Heavyweight title against Priest.
That did not last long though as CM Punk’s Cult of Personality hit the speakers for the third time on the night, and Punk sprinted out in a towel and shower cap much to the amusement of everyone.
Punk took down both Kaiser and Mysterio but the two eventually go the upper hand and went for a double clothesline, only for Punk to hit the brakes as he hit the ropes and Priest delivered one of his own.
After the dust cleared, Punk put over Priest and said that Priest grew up in New York watching wrestling here and now he got to main event The Garden.
Earlier, Punk defeated Kaiser in a rare non-televised match and he also had a nod to John Cena, doing several of his moves during his comeback. Last year in the same show, Punk wrestled Mysterio in his first match back with the company.
WWE Raw will return to Madison Square Garden on Monday, March 10 for the first time in three years as the road to WrestleMania goes through New York City.
The announcement was made yesterday during the annual Boxing Day WWE non-televised live event at The Garden. Tickets go on pre-sale on Wednesday, January 10 at 10AM using the code SOCIAL and they go on general sale on Friday, January 12 at 10AM as well through Ticketmaster.com.
WWE avoids running The Garden for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one is costs that come along with it and using specific staff as dictated by MSG.
After a total of 177 episodes, Rampage is bidding farewell tonight with its final episode as the show was not picked up as part of the latest AEW media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery.
The show launched on August 13 2021, four months after AEW announced Rampage as its second weekly show which would air on Friday nights at 10PM ET.
Its debut came from the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with 740,000 fans watching live with a main event of Kenny Omega vs Christian Cage for the Impact World title.
But perhaps its biggest episode was the following week, titled The First Dance, which saw the return of CM Punk at a sold out United Center in Chicago. 1.12 million fans tuned in and that was the only time the show did over a million viewers.
Unfortunately over the years, ratings for Rampage took a nose dive and AEW started treating it more as a filler, rather than putting must-see matches.
In its debut year, the show averaged 608,429 viewers and a 0.25 rating in 18-49. In 2022, it dropped to an average of 463,519 weekly viewers and a 0.15 rating in 18-49. 2023 was even worse, with average of 377,385 throughout the year and a 0.11 rating in 18-49.
Excluding tonight’s final episode, the 2024 average dropped to 297,667 viewers and a 0.10 rating in 18-49, with the show doing record lows this year alone.
While Punk’s episode in 2021 was the most-watched of the entire series, the November 1, 2024 episode will hold the record of the least-watched Rampage ever, with just 172,000 viewers tuning in and a 0.05 rating in 18-49.
Raw this week drew 1,453,000 viewers, down 80,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast against Monday Night Football’s 14.6 million audience for the Saints vs Packers game which was simulcast on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2.
The first hour did 1,448,000 viewers and then the second hour climbed slightly to 1,458,000 viewers.
The show had a 0.42 rating in 18-49, down 0.05 from last week’s show and the lowest since October 28. Raw was #3 on the top 50 cable chart for the night behind NFL shows and #5 overall in all of television. (Ratings credit: Programming Insider)
Helped by a big lead-in from the college football game which drew 8.6 million viewers, Collision on Saturday night drew 635,000 viewers, up a whopping 389,000 viewers from the previous week. This was the most-watched Collision of 2024 by a mile and the best number since July 29, 2023 and the third most-watched Collision ever. The show had a 0.20 rating in 18-49, up 0.11 from the previous week and also a year-high. It was #3 on the top 50 cable chart for the night. (Ratings credit: Programming Insider)
Pro Wrestling NOAH today announced that WWE Superstar Omos will be at their upcoming January 1 The New Year 2025 event which will take place at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo.
With 10 matches already announced for the show, it’s unclear if Omos will be part of another match or just making an appearance.
Omos last wrestled on the April 5 episode of Smackdown on the eve of WrestleMania during the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal. He remains under WWE contract but has not been used since then, although he does do media appearances for the company from time to time.
Fellow WWE Superstar Shinsuke Nakamura will also be at the January 1 event and will take on Ulka Sasaki in a singles match. The WWE United States title will not be on the line.
NOAH The New Year 2025 will air as a pay-per-view on the Abema streaming service. Abema also airs all WWE programming in Japan.
AEW star Tay Melo, who has not wrestled since March 3, 2023, will be returning to the ring for STARDOM in Japan at their New Year Dream 2025 event.
The 29-year-old Brazilian will be teaming up with Mina Shirakawa to take on ROH Women’s champion Athena and Thekla in a tag team match.
Melo’s last match at the NEW Wrestlefest XXVII event, teaming up with her husband Sammy Guevara to take on Encore and Tiara James. Her last AEW in-ring appearance was on the January 1, 2023 episode of Rampage in a street fight match, teaming up with Anna Jay in a losing effort against Ruby Soho and Willow Nightingale.
Melo gave birth to a daughter in late November of the same year.
While CM Punk did WWE promotion during the Steelers vs Chiefs NFL pre-game show on Netflix, WWE Women’s World champion Liv Morgan did her appearance on the second game later in the day.
Morgan showed up at the Houston Texans vs Baltimore Ravens game to promote WWE’s arrival on Netflix which is now just two weeks away.
Interviewed on the field while holding the title on her shoulder, Morgan said if someone had told her she would be on Netflix weekly years ago, she would have cried tears of happiness.
“This is so huge, the fact that WWE and Netflix are joining together to give all the WWE fans across the globe the opportunity to watch WWE Monday Night Raw in the same place for the first time ever, debuting on Netflix January 6th, we’re so excited and we can’t wait for everyone to watch us,” Morgan said.
Former ECW champion Taz made his return to the AEW commentary desk during last night’s Christmas edition of Dynamite.
Taz underwent knee replacement surgery in October and at the time wrapped up his AEW commentary duties at the end of September. It was alluded that Taz was attacked in the parking lot during the October 2 episode of Dynamite, an attack which was never shown on television but done to explain why Taz would be off television for weeks to follow.
With Dynamite in New York, it was a quick and easy trip for the man known as the human suplex machine to make, although it’s unclear if he will rejoin the commentary team weekly from now on.
The Continental Classic semi final matches which will take place at Worlds End were revealed last night after the conclusion of the tournament.
In the blue league, Kyle Fletcher topped the group with 12 points while Continental champion Kazuchika Okada was behind with 10 points. Ricochet topped the gold league with 10 points and Will Ospreay followed with nine.
The semi finals will now see Fletcher taking on Ospreay and Ricochet taking on Okada, with the winners of the two matches then meeting later in the night for the Continental title.
This year’s Continental Classic tournament saw 12 AEW stars compete against each other in a round-robin tournament. Apart from the top two in each league, the blue league finished with Mark Briscoe with nine points, Daniel Garcia with seven, Shelton Benjamin with six, and The Beast Mortos with no points. The gold league also had Claudio Castagnoli with nine points, Darby Allin with seven, Brody King with six, and Komander with three.
Over 11,000 fans will be on hand for the traditional Boxing Day non-televised live event at the world’s most famous arena – Madison Square Garden – for today’s WWE Holiday Tour.
It is going to be a loaded show headlined by a steel cage match for the World Heavyweight title between Gunther and Damian Priest. Liv Morgan will defend the Women’s World title against Iyo Sky and Bron Breakker also puts up his Intercontinental title on the line against Sami Zayn in a two-out-of-three falls match. Seth Rollins will battle Dominik Mysterio and CM Punk makes a rare non-televised appearance against Ludwig Kaiser.
Other stars scheduled to appear include The Miz, Wyatt Sicks, The New Day, LA Knight, Drew McIntyre, and more.
The final matches of the Continental Classic took place last night on the Christmas edition of Dynamite from the Hammerstein Ballroom.
In the gold league, Will Ospreay defeated Brody King, putting Ospreay with nine points and King with six on the chart. The Darby Allin vs Ricochet match ended in a time-limit draw, with Ricochet increasing to 10 points and Allin with seven. The other remaining gold league match saw Komander defeat Claudio Castagnoli, with Komander earning his first three points while Castagnoli finished with nine.
In the blue league, Kazuchika Okada beat Shelton Benjamin to earn three points and finish with 10 points overall while Benjamin remained with six. The final match was Kyle Fletcher defeated Daniel Garcia, with Fletcher moving to 12 points and Garcia staying put with seven.
The annual WWE holiday tour kicks off today with ten events in five days.
The fun starts with two events, one at Madison Square Garden in New York and the other at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville. On Friday it’s a live event at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh and a live Smackdown from the Amalie Arena in Tampa. Saturday the action moves to Orlando at the Kia Center and at the CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore. On Sunday it’s live from the Allstate Arena in Chicago and Kaseya Center in Miami.
It all ends on Monday night with one event at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit and a live Raw at the same time in Houston at the Toyota Center.
Tickets are available for all shows at Ticketmaster.com.
