It was a good year for All Elite Wrestling and its Dynamite broadcast on TNT. While growth was not as much as expected, it’s safe to say that Dynamite was the king of Wednesday night when it comes to the war against NXT.
Dynamite averaged 810,755 viewers for 2020 and it’s really not fair to compare it to 2019 since there were only 12 episodes that year. In 2019, those 12 episodes averaged 911,000 viewers.
Before the pandemic started, Dynamite was averaging 884,364 viewers per week and once it moved to no fans – or limited fans now – the show averaged 791,476 for the rest of the year.
The show broke the 1 million viewer mark once in 52 weeks and that was for the September 9 episode which got 1,016,000 viewers. The show did more than 900,000 viewers on 11 other occasions, with their December 9 episode bringing in 995,000 viewers and the Brodie Lee tribute on December 30 an additional 977,000.
The least-watched Dynamite was on June 24 and that night it did just 633,000 viewers. Dynamite lost to NXT in total viewership only nine times during 2020 and won all 52 weeks in the 18-49 demographic, an amazing feat.
More WWE Superstars threw in their name for the 2021 Royal Rumble over-the-top rope match last night on Raw, although the list is far, far from being close to complete.
AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Riddle, and Elias are the latest names added to the match and they join Bobby Lashley and Daniel Bryan who already made their intentions known last week. In the women’s match, there are only two entrants so far, with Charlotte Flair and Nia Jax.
As it’s often the case, the women’s match will have several NXT and a few WWE Legends added to the match simply because the roster is not deep enough to support 30 entries from the main roster.
The company also usually leaves a few spots empty which are reserved for surprise appearances.
Amanda Huber, the wife of the late Brodie Lee, issued a long statement jumping to WWE’s defense and slamming those fans who are trying to sow divide in professional wrestling.
Amanda said that many people expect her and her family to hate WWE simply because her husband wanted more than they envisioned for him. She said that Jon did not hate WWE and she recognizes that WWE gave her husband a platform to live his dream.
“He was able to travel the world, in his dream job. He got to entertain millions of people. He got to build a beautiful life for our family. He held singles gold there. He won a belt at WrestleMania! He ticked so many ‘Dream life boxes there,” Amanda wrote.
She explained that Jon left WWE because he wanted a little more out of his career and did not leave out of hate, and not because WWE is an evil company, but because his vision did not match theirs.
“The most incredible thing he took away from his time in WWE was the people. The people he carried with him until his very last days. It wasn’t one company vs another. Little Brodie loves wrestling. We still watch wrestling every week. We would tune in to see “Uncle boom-boom” Cesaro and family best friend Big E. People that transcended the lines of friendship into family,” Amanda continued.
She said that the people in WWE watched her kids grow up and loved her husband and welcomed all of them into their arms. “They became my family too. The flood of love I’ve received from the WWE is real and it’s beautiful.”
In a parting shot to the internet wrestling community, Amanda concluded, “In my husband’s final moments, the people that surrounded my family were wrestlers. Companies didn’t matter. Please, I beg you. Stop trying to create a divide in wrestling. Support pro wrestling. Love pro wrestling. Live your life like Brodie in a way that people speak like this.”
Rapper and actress Cardi B ended up trending on Twitter last night after Torrie Wilson name-dropped her on Raw in a plot to get rid of Angel Garza.
That led to tons of WWE fans tagging her in tweets, catching the popular artist by surprise. “Wait what’s going on? People keep tagging me in WWE stuff?” she wondered. And that was enough to open the floodgates. When someone asked her if she’s watching Raw, she said no, she used to, but she keeps seeing people tagging her on WWE stuff and she’s kinda confused!
When a fan tagged her in a video showing her Torrie mentioning her name, Cardi B replied, “WWWWTTTTFFFFFFFFF …. This is not how my WWE debut was supposed to be,” she wrote. “Vince McMahon COUNT YOUR F*CKIN DAYS!!!!”
She then went on to respond to some tweets from fans, revealing that she used to be a big WWE fan when Booker T, Eddie Guerrero, Triple H, John Cena, Edge, Melina, Trish Stratus, Lita, and others were still in their prime. She also said she likes Sasha Banks a lot.
When frequent WWE contributor Wale interfered, he suggested that Cardi B show up with a Rey Mysterio mask and cut some promos. “They ready for u sis,” Wale told her. She then posted, “Don’t gotta tell me twice,” she replied. “This me on my way to WrestleMania to collect my check!”
The 28-year-old New York native made headlines recently with the song WAP and last year, Billboard honored her as Woman of the Year.
WWE announced the hiring of Christine Lubrano as the new Senior Vice President of Creative Writing Operations.
Prior to joining WWE, Lubrano spent four years between 1997 and 2001 as Manager of Programming and Production for Bravo where she managed short form content and program packaging for network series, events and specials. Following that, she spent 18 years at IFC and had various roles including Vice President of Unscripted Series, Documentaries and Live Events, Vice President of Current Production, and Senior Vice President of Original programming and Development.
Former champ Goldberg made a surprise appearance during the Legends Night Raw and challenged WWE champion Drew McIntyre for a title match at the upcoming Royal Rumble pay-per-view.
Goldberg’s appearance came at the and of the show after McIntyre successfully defended the WWE title against Keith Lee. Goldberg’s problem with Drew was that the champion thinks he is better than the WWE Legends were in their prime and while in his mind there’s no WWE Legend that poses a threat to him, Goldberg is there to show him that he is a legit threat.
McIntyre disrespected Goldberg by saying that wrestling Goldberg now would be like wrestling his father and the Goldberg of today is not the same man of 20 years ago. That did not sit down well with Goldberg, who pushed the champ down after a face-to-face.
Goldberg’s last dance in the ring was at WrestleMania 36 where he was defeated by Braun Strowman for the Universal title. He has not appeared on TV ever since but did show up as part of the virtual crowd a few months ago and on The Bump last month he said he has unfinished business with Roman Reigns.
Reigns was Goldberg’s original opponent at WrestleMania until he pulled out a week before due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week’s Impact on AXS TV drew 103,000 viewers, down 30,000 viewers from the previous week. It had a 0.01 in the 18-49 demographic and did not chart in the top 150. Impact will return to new original programming from tomorrow. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
The first Raw of 2021 will welcome several WWE Legends back as tonight’s show is Legends Night live from the ThunderDome inside Tropicana Field.
Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair are heavily featured in promotional material for the broadcast and other Legends featured in the commercials include Alicia Fox, Beth Phoenix, Big Show, Boogeyman, Booker T, Carlito, Hillbilly Jim, Ivory, IRS, Jacqueline, Jeff Jarrett, Jimmy Hart, Kurt Angle, Mark Henry, Melina, Michael Hayes, Mickie James, Sgt. Slaughter, Tatanka, and Torrie Wilson.
This will be Hulk Hogan’s first time inside the ThunderDome and speaking to ESPN, Hogan said it will take him a bit to adjust to being in front of no fans, saying that he used to freak out even when a bunch of people sat down looking at their phones during his segments.
The only match announced so far for tonight’s Raw is a WWE title match, a big one as Drew McIntyre defends his title against Keith Lee.
Body shaming isn’t just for teenage girls on Instagram.
Chris Jericho is the latest victim of psychological-emotional abuse. NBA fans recently called out the AEW Champ for his ‘dad bod.’ AEW Dynamite aired directly after the evening NBA game last week, and basketball fans took to the internet like toddlers to a tablet and ran up a string of tweets and social posts with the hashtag, #fatJericho.
Sure, Chris Jericho isn’t perfectly cut and ripped any more. But to be fair, the man is 50 years old. So, with that in mind, he’s in great physical condition for his age. Jericho responded to the tweets with an open shirt selfie and the statement, “Awwww, they are [body shaming me]? Well, either way, I guarantee I can do more timed pushups, weighted squats, and incline sit-ups than all of them AND still draw record ratings. I have a really thick skin, kids…. #LeChampion.”
The idea was to show how ripped he is, and that’s what the headlines read, ‘Jericho Responds to Body-Shaming With Ripped Selfie.’ Honestly, he still looks pretty dad-bod-ish in the picture, but that’s OK; he’s 50. Furthermore, he’s right. He probably still outwork 95% of the people on the planet in the gym.
Fade to Black
You may know him as Brodi Lee. You may know him as Luke Harper. No matter the name, his presence in and out of the ring was undeniable. Friends, family, and wrestling fans lost a great one this weekend as Jon Huber succumbed to an undisclosed lung illness.
The AEW and WWE communities are still reeling. “It doesn’t feel real. It feels like I’m in a very vivid dream, and I’m waiting to snap out of it. My brain hasn’t accepted it yet. Right now, I’m completely f—— numb. He was an incredible person. While so many of us would be all hot about some wrestling angle, he would find a way to turn negatives into a positive or an inside joke. He was the exact person you wanted in the locker room. I was so glad to be around him again in AEW.” – Jon Moxley.
Whether in the WWE, AEW or before, everybody who worked with Huber had similar things to say. He was a brilliant athlete, especially for a big man. But more than anything, he was a great guy to be around, and he elevated the believability of the scenes, in and out of the ring, for wrestling fans watching.
Burned Raw
As we move closer to the Royal Rumble on January 21st, we get a clearer picture of who’ll most likely be standing in the ring the longest. Here’s a little hint: it’s not Randy Orton, who is 33/1 on the latest betting odds boards for who’ll win the Royal Rumble–if you bet on the event, be sure to take advantage of the best betting bonuses.
On the heels of Randy Orton burning the Fiend in a box, then later in the ring, Alexa Bliss calls Orton to the ring, but instead, he shows up in the Firefly Funhouse and destroys it. Afterward, he did show up to the ring, and Bliss doused herself with gasoline and taunted Orten to light her on fire. Orton hesitated, and she called him out on not being as sick and evil as he seems because he can’t burn her up. But when the lights went out, you see him light a match, and then we are left wondering, did he torch Alexa Bliss?
Raw to Rumble
The Raw and Smackdown storylines always build into the big Pay Per View events. But even though Orton and the Fiend have been center stage, Orton is a long shot to win the Royal Rumble.
NXT faced an uphill battle on Wednesday going against the Brodie Lee special over at TNT and the show got only 586,000 viewers, down 112,000 viewers from last week’s show. This was the least-watched episode of NXT since March 18, 2020. NXT also got a record-low 0.12 rating in the 18-49 and was #58 on the cable chart. The viewership difference between the two shows was of a massive 391,000, up from last week’s 77,000 viewership. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
The Jon Huber tribute show on Dynamite expected to bring in big numbers and it did as Wednesday’s Dynamite pulled in 977,000 viewers, up 202,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show did a very good 0.40 rating in the 18-49 demographic, placing Dynamite #4 on the cable chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
A pre-taped promo from Jon Moxley, the current IWGP United States Heavyweight champion, aired during night one of Wrestle Kingdom 15 yesterday. The promo was played before the KENTA vs Satoshi Kojima match which was KENTA’s IWGP U.S. Heavyweight title contract defense.
Moxley said that while many have wanted that U.S. title contract, all of them thought they were going to get off easy and hoped that the champion would never return.
“But I am the boogeyman in New Japan Pro Wrestling. I will get you eventually. So whoever walks out of the Tokyo Dome with that contract, make no mistake about it, I am coming for you,” Moxley said.
The former AEW World champion won the IWGP United States Heavyweight title a year ago from Lance Archer at Wrestle Kingdom 14. He has not stepped foot inside an NJPW ring since February of last year and his last title defense came in at New Beginning In Osaka, defeating Minoru Suzuki on February 9. His only other title defense was at Wrestle Kingdom 14 night two against Juice Robinson.
WWE will have a Best Of Luke Harper special airing on the WWE Network this month.
No date when this will premiere has been announced but the Harper episode will join other new Best Of episodes scheduled for January, including episodes on Roman Reigns’ championship matches, Attitude Era Royal Rumble matches, and Royal Rumble matches of the 2000’s.
WWE honored Jon Huber with an In Memoriam graphic at the start of Raw, NXT, and Smackdown, and several WWE Superstars wore a Brodie armband and made several references to him during the three shows. WWE also uploaded a five-minute video on their digital properties with WWE Superstars talking about Huber and what he meant to them.
Huber spent seven years working for WWE between 2012 and 2019.
Brodie Lee’s cause of death remains a question mark to this day and all that we know is that he was suffering from a lung illness. In the latest episode of the Grilling JR podcast, AEW commentator Jim Ross discussed what they were told about his condition.
“All I know is he had double lung failure,” Ross said, adding that his lungs were in such bad condition that he did not even qualify for a transplant.
“As I heard the story…whether it’s totally accurate or not I don’t know, that they took him off his machine to see if he could kick out himself as that’s about the only chance he had,” Ross continued.
According to statistics published, life expectancy after a double lung transplant isn’t long, with only about five out of 10 people surviving for at least five years so the future did not look good for him even if he did undergo the procedure.
The 41-year-old Huber was being treated at the Jacksonville Mayo Clinic and his wife wrote that his illness baffled even some of the world’s best doctors.
It’s not known if there was an autopsy performed on him after he passed away.
The New Year’s Day episode of Smackdown drew just 1,915,000 in the overnight ratings, down 1,338,000 viewers from last week’s record-high number. The last time Smackdown aired on January 1 was in 2019 and it did 2,091,000 viewers.
The first hour of Smackdown drew 1,996,000 viewers and then followed with 1,834,000 viewers in the second hour. Smackdown was #1 in 18-34 with 0.3, #1 in 18-49 with 0.5, and #1 in 25-54 with 0.6 rating. Smackdown finished last among the four big networks in overall viewership. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
The WWE YouTube channel was the fifth most popular worldwide for 2020, with a massive 52.8 billion views in the calendar year from 51,800 videos.
The #1 spot went to T-Series, an Indian music company which has the most subscribed Indian YouTube channel. T-Series amassed a whopping 136 billion views in 2020. Second place went to Cocomelon, a nursery rhyme and kids song channel which boasts the third most subscribed YouTube channel and the most subscribed channel in the United States. Cocomelon did 87.8 billion views in 2020. Sony Entertainment Television India took the #3 place with 74 billion views and Zee TV, a music company also based in India, took #4 with 56.4 billion views.
WWE occupied the #2 spot in 2019, 2018, and 2017 on YouTube but the pandemic, with many working from home and more kids being at home, created a huge shift in online viewing habits.
Smackdown’s move to FOX was obviously very beneficial for WWE and it remains the only WWE show to actually increase its average from the previous year, although not by much.
For 2020, Smackdown’s audience had an average of 2,182,000 viewers, a very slight increase from the 2,168,000 average of 2019. But considering the pandemic and the fact that people started to tune out when fans left the arenas, this has to be considered somewhat of a win. The last time Smackdown had fans in the arena was the March 6 episode which did 2,452,000 viewers.
Smackdown crossed the 2.5 million viewer mark on six different weeks in 2020 and it was only 11 times that it did not cross the 2 million viewership. The show hit a bit of a rough patch between May and August, but once the move to the ThunderDome happened, viewership recovered a little bit.
The most-watched Smackdown was on Christmas day with 3,303,000 viewers thanks in part to a massive lead-in from the NFL. After that, it was the February 28 episode which got the most viewers with 2,716,000 tuning in.
Smackdown was pre-empted twice on FOX, once for the NBA and once for college football. On both occasions, the show did miserable numbers on FS1, with 881,000 viewers registered on October 23 and just 1,103,000 viewers registered on December 18. Taking those two episodes out, Smackdown’s lowest number came on July 3 with 1,776,000 viewers.
Sonya Deville has returned to Smackdown after she lost a loser leaves WWE match at SummerSlam against her former tag team partner Mandy Rose.
She was shown walking through the backstage area as WWE Superstars looked on surprised. “Your eyes are not deceiving you, Sonya Deville has been reinstated,” Corey Graves claimed on commentary.
Deville actually took a leave of absence due to the court case she had against her stalker after an attempted armed kidnapping back in mid-August. Last year, 24-year-old Phillip A. Thomas II, cut a hole in the patio screen and scouted the home for several hours before entering the property after Deville went to bed at around 2:43AM.
The WWE star, who had Mandy Rose with her, fled the house in time after Thomas activated the intrusion alarm and called 911. When deputies arrived, Thomas was still in the house and he was found carrying a knife, plastic zip ties, duct tape, mace and other items. He confessed that the plan was to kidnap the WWE Superstar.
The planned match for SummerSlam was a hair match but it was quickly turned into a loser leaves WWE match to give Deville time to tackle the legal case.
Mick Foley revealed on Twitter that he has COVID-19 and has been stuck in a hotel room by himself for the past 18 days.
Foley got the positive result after he did a virtual signing event, admitting he removed his mask when two other people were next to him. One of those two developed symptoms later in the day and tested positive and then he underwent a coronavirus test himself which also came back positive.
Mick said that apart from loss of smell, hearing, fatigue, and body aches, the thing that sucked the most is not being able to celebrate Christmas and New Year with his family.
He urged his fans to keep wearing a mask, do social distancing, limit their travel, and take the pandemic seriously.
I tested positive for COVID following a December virtual signing, and have been isolating in a hotel room for the past 18 days.
Please continue to take this virus seriously – mask up, social distance, look out for one another.
While little eight-year-old Brodie was all smiles and looked like he was enjoying himself on Wednesday night during the tribute show to his late father, the boy broke down after the show went off the air, with AEW cameras capturing the heartbreaking moments that followed.
Brodie Jr gave a massive hug to AEW President Tony Khan in the middle of the ring and then let go in his mother’s arms, capping off a very hard night where he too was the star of the show.
Cody Rhodes and Preston “10” Vance, who remained in the ring, attended to both Brodie and his mother Amanda as Tony Khan thanked the fans for showing up and honoring Jon Huber.
Huber’s wrestling boots remained in the middle of the ring as everyone made their exit.
During the Dynamite post-show podcast, Cody said that Brodie Jr was doing fine and was playing video games with Darby Allin’s father backstage.
