POST IT NOTES
**We have released our recent audio doc “What Happened to Tammy Sytch?” for everyone on the site. It was first released on the POST Wrestling Café last week.
**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with Rewind-A-Raw to review the show from Albany, New York, and chat about the latest news.
WWE VIEWERSHIP – November 2023
Today, we’ll look at WWE’s television performance throughout November with comparisons to last month and the year prior. Later this week, we will do a breakdown of AEW’s performance.
WWE Raw
Overall Viewership
November: 1,583,000
October: 1,484,000
November 2022: 1,639,000
Adults 18-49
November: 674,000
October: 591,000
November 2022: 549,000
Adults 18-34
November: 264,000
October: 232,000
November 2022: 215,000
Raw had a very good month improving on its October numbers with a 14% gain in its 18-49 audience and a 23% jump in 18-34. The key to November was last week’s show following Survivor Series with a commercial-free hour and the returns of CM Punk and Randy Orton which attracted its largest audience since August 7. If you throw out last week’s show, Raw was still up 4% in 18-49 and 3% in 18-34, so the returns made a big difference but don’t negate upward movement. Raw’s viewership grew 7% from October but was down 3% from the previous year, although, with the difference in cable homes, Raw outdid the trend. December is typically a very bad month for Raw numbers given the lull in the calendar, no premium live event and Monday Night Football but this year is different with the return of CM Punk and Raw is significantly more “must-see” than previous years at this time.
WWE SmackDown
Overall Viewership
November: 2,173,000*
October: 2,330,000*
November 2022: 2,200,000
Adults 18-49
November: 756,000*
October: 812,000*
November 2022: 705,000
Adults 18-34
November: 271,000*
October: 274,000*
November 2022: 246,000
*Excluding one episode that aired on FS1
SmackDown was down from October with the key difference being a lack of appearances by John Cena in November compared to the previous month. October featured Cena on each week’s program including the season premiere on October 13 that averaged 2.4 million viewers and an appearance by Roman Reigns, who was absent in November. SmackDown also had one taped episode on November 3 due to Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia but did feature Cena’s lone November appearance to promote the match with Solo Sikoa the next day. We did not include the FS1 shows from October 27 and November 24, but the latter dropped 31% from the October show on cable with the October show airing against the World Series while November had college football competition. Year-over-year, SmackDown grew 7% in 18-49 and 10% in 18-34, which are strong signs especially given how hot Sami Zayn and the Bloodline story was last year going into War Games.
NXT
Overall Viewership
November: 695,000
October: 841,000
November 2022: 653,000
Adults 18-49
November: 276,000
October: 316,000 (289,000 without Super Tuesday)
November 2022: 183,000
Adults 18-34
November: 113,000
October: 123,000
November 2022: 73,000
The month of November saw a drop off from October, mainly due to the abnormally large audience for the Super Tuesday episode that aired against Dynamite in October. This was also the post-Becky Lynch effect after dropping the women’s title to Lyra Valkyria on October 31. While NXT is still featuring main roster appearances by Dominik Mysterio and Alpha Academy, it is a drop from the star power of Lynch. However, year-over-year comparisons are exceptionally strong with a 51% growth in 18-49 and a 55% increase among 18-34 while USA Network is in 4% fewer homes this year.
Data: Patreon.com/Wrestlenomics
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John Pollock & Andrew Thompson
Friday: POST Puroresu with WH Park & Karen Peterson
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Neal Flanagan (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: NXT Deadline with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Sunday: Collision Course with Kate from Montreal & John Siino (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: NJPW World Tag League Finals with Karen Peterson & Bruce Lord (POST Wrestling Café)
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw is at the MVP Arena in Albany, New York with a bunch of matches advertised including a rare World Heavyweight Championship match. CM Punk is advertised for this Friday’s Tribute to the Troops edition of SmackDown, so it’s unlikely he is appearing on the show tonight. The show will be airing against the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (the competition will be much stronger next week when Raw airs against two Monday night games). Below are the announced matches:
*World Heavyweight Championship: Seth Rollins © vs. Jey Uso
*Two-of-Three Falls: DIY vs. Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci
*Drew McIntyre vs. Sami Zayn
*Nia Jax vs. Shayna Baszler
*Dominik Mysterio & JD McDonagh vs. The Creeds
*Natalya & Tegan Nox vs. Katana Chance & Kayden Carter
*Cody Rhodes responds to Shinsuke Nakamura
**WrestleTix noted on Sunday that Raw had moved 1,665 tickets over the past week for tonight’s show in Albany, New York. One would surmise that many of those tickets were on the belief that CM Punk and/or Randy Orton would be on the show, neither of whom are advertised. It’s tricky as WWE never advertised either one for tonight but given there is an active brand split and both appeared last week, it’s a fair assumption for a fan in Albany to expect at least one of them back this week. As of Sunday, Raw had 6,599 tickets distributed for tonight’s show at the MVP Arena, which is down 11% from the last time Raw was there in May, but you still have today’s walk-up unaccounted for.
**NJPW issued a statement that the English broadcast of this Sunday’s World Tag League Finals might be delayed. Walker Stewart and Chris Charlton will be recording their commentary in real time but won’t be broadcasting live. If all goes well, the English version should be up right away, but we were told it’s not a guarantee as they are at the mercy of their technical limitations with the two recording remotely. NJPW started that live English coverage will resume beginning with the December 21 card at Korakuen Hall.
**Ricochet returned to the ring on Saturday’s WWE live event in Bangor, Maine where he beat Bronson Reed. Ricochet had not wrestled since November 6 when he was injured on Raw during a four-way match involving Reed, The Miz, and Ivar. After the match, it was reported that Ricochet had entered concussion protocol.
**There was a brief incident at Sunday’s WWE show in Newark, Delaware where a fan jumped the barricade after a match involving Grayson Waller. Waller & Theory had just faced Odyssey Jones & Cameron Grimes when a fan was seen getting over the barricade and being subdued by security before he could get to Waller, who just played it off and joked about it on X. The video of the incident was caught on camera by The Spotlight News.
A fan jumped the barricade to attack Grayson Waller#WWENewark pic.twitter.com/j459ThLUX2
— TheSpotlightNews.com (@TheSpotlight___) December 4, 2023
**Comcast CEO Mike Cavanagh spoke at the UBS Global Media and Communications conference on Monday and boasted that Peacock has now reached 30 million paid subscribers (up from the recently released figure of 28 million at the end of Q3). The streaming platform will report losses of $2.8 billion in 2023, which Cavanagh expects to be the peak of its losses. (Variety)
**NJPW’s World Tag League is winding down this week with one more round-robin match for each team in the two blocks. The final round-robin matches in the A Block take place on Wednesday and the final B Block matches the next day. The top team teams in each block advance to the semi-finals on Friday. The A Block is down to TMDK, Alex Coughlin & Gabe Kidd, and Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano with two of the three advancing. TMDK will face Coughlin & Kidd with that winner going through while Ishii & Yano need to beat Great O-Khan & HENARE. Coughlin & Kidd would win a tiebreaker with Ishii & Yano if both teams lose. In the B Block, the key matches on Thursday are Lance Archer & Alex Zayne vs. Hikuleo & El Phantasmo and Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Taichi & Yuya Uemura with the winning teams advancing to the semis. The finals air on Sunday.
**AJPW’s Real World Tag League wraps up on Wednesday at Korakuen Hall with a logjam on top of the standings. Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hokuto Omori, Suwama & Hideki Suzuki, and Jun & Rei Saito are tied with ten points each followed by Yuma Aoyagi & Kento Miyahara with nine. If Nakajima & Omori beat Aoyagi & Miyahara on Wednesday, they win. If Miyahara & Aoyagi win, they need Suwama & Suzuki and Jun & Rei Saito to both lose their matches. Below are the Tag League matches on Wednesday morning:
*Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hokuto Omori (10) vs. Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi (9)
*Jun & Rei Saito (10) vs. Ryuki Honda & Yuma Anzai (7)
*Shuji Ishikawa & Ren Ayabe (4) vs. Suwama & Hideki Suzuki (10)
*Yukio Sakaguchi & Hideki Okatani (4) vs. Kuroshio Tokyo Japan & Seigo Tachibana (6)
*Hayato Tamura & Galeno del Mal (8) vs. Cyrus & Ryan Davidson (8)
**NXT on Tuesday night will feature two “Last Chance” fatal four-way matches for the final spots in the men’s and women’s Iron Survivor Challenge matches. The men’s match will feature Tyler Bate vs. Eddy Thorpe vs. Carmelo Hayes vs. Joe Coffey while the women’s match has Thea Hail vs. Roxanne Perez vs. Kiana James vs. Fallon Henley. There is also a six-person tag with Chad Gable, Otis & Maxxine vs. Noam Dar, Oro Mensah & Lash Legend. Andre Chase will hold a “special assembly” addressing the allegations against Chase U.
**Shawn Michaels will be hosting a media call this Thursday at Noon ET to promote NXT Deadline.
**The Poisonrana team of Braden Herrington & Davie Portman interviewed OVW’s HollyHood Haley J at Sunday’s Destiny Wrestling x Ohio Valley Wrestling event in Toronto.
**Josh Alexander has been announced for House of Glory’s next show on January 6 at the NYC Arena in Jamaica, New York.
**AEW makes its Montreal debut this week with back-to-back nights at the Bell Centre beginning Tuesday with a Collision taping followed by the Dynamite/Rampage event on Wednesday. This week’s Dynamite is highlighted by Adam Copeland vs. Christian Cage for the TNT Championship. Since February 2002, they have only had one singles match and that was in May 2010. The rest of the show features three Gold League matches with Jon Moxley vs. Rush, Mark Briscoe vs. Swerve Strickland, and Jay Lethal vs. Jay White. Plus, Toni Storm vs. Skye Blue for the AEW Women’s title, and MJF & Samoa Joe vs. Two of the masked men. On Tuesday, they will tape Kenny Omega vs. Ethan Page to air on Saturday’s edition of Collision.
**Due to AEW Rampage and Collision taking place in Canada, both episodes will air live on TSN 2 this Friday and Saturday night.
**MLW has added a three-way tag match to this Thursday’s Fusion TV taping. The Mane Event will face Wasted Youth and TJ Crawford & Griffin McCoy with the winning team receiving an MLW tag title shot. The tapings take place at the Melrose Ballroom on the same night as the One Shot event.
**IMPACT Wrestling will stage its No Surrender event on February 23 at the Alario Center in Westwego, Louisiana followed by TV tapings the next night. Tickets for the shows go on sale this Saturday.
*****
AUDIO DOC: What Happened to Tammy Sytch?
John Pollock explores the tragic path of Tammy Sytch that resulted in her sentencing last week after the March 2022 death of Julian Lasseter.
*****
COLLISION COURSE
John Siino and Kate From MTL review AEW Collision featuring Blue League Continental Classic matches including Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown with Randy Orton appearing on the show, Logan Paul setting up his next title defense & more.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #144: ECW December to Dismember 2006
John Pollock and Wai Ting review ECW December to Dismember (2006), the first and only PPV produced under the ECW on Sci-Fi era, regarded as one of the worst WWE events of all time.
*****
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