THIS WEEK AT POST WRESTLING
Today: Rewind-A-Wai #172: NOAH Departure feat. Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (Available now on POST Café)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: AEW Worlds End with John Pollock & Wai Ting (Free show)
Monday: The Best & Worst of 2024 (POST Wrestling Café)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POST WRESTLING
We hope everyone had a great holiday and I wanted to start by thanking everyone who caught some (or all) of the Christmas Show we released on Tuesday. POST Wrestling launched on Xmas Eve in 2017, and it was a big gamble for Wai Ting and I with no expectation of how long it would last or if we would have a sustainable model. We went into this with the idea of treating it like a full-time job until the following summer and then would assess if it was viable for us to continue full-time or make it a side project. Within weeks, you gave us a clear signal that we could do this, and we are now entering the eighth year of this operation and it’s nothing we take for granted. It has never been our intention to just house a site for the two of us and along the way, we have developed an incredible network of contributors and put a lot of resources back into the site through your subscriptions. Whether you were here at the beginning, middle, or just now, we thank everyone for spending any amount of free time consuming any of the shows, articles, or anything else POST-related. I’ve never enjoyed covering the industry more than I am today and it’s in large part to the people I get to do it with and importantly, the audience we have cultivated together, which has always been the secret sauce on the site. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
MORE ON LEE FITTING
Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com had an update regarding Lee Fitting after The Athletic reported on Fitting’s ouster at ESPN last year following an investigation into misconduct at the workplace. There was confusion after Monday’s edition of Raw where Dave Meltzer noted that Fitting wasn’t listed during the credits at the end of Raw, this was an error because Raw has not incorporated the credits at the end like NXT and SmackDown has. Fitting’s name was included with Paul Leveque and Shawn Michaels at the close of NXT on Tuesday. The larger note from Johnson:
PWInsider.com has been told that WWE was aware of the Fitting situation at ESPN at the time of his hiring.
This was the central question after the reporting by Katie Strang and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic and it was hard to fathom that WWE wouldn’t be aware, but Johnson seems to make this clear. In the reporting by Strange & Marchand, the investigation into workplace culture at ESPN saw Fitting’s name brought up many times regarding language used, jokes made, a text calling another employee “hot”, and other exchanges. Fitting’s spokesperson did deny several of the allegations in the story and WWE did not respond to the reporter’s inquiries for the story. The question will become how much oxygen this story holds with the public and if people allow it to pass because Fitting is less of a public-facing member of the staff, although his name is prominently displayed on two of its major shows. Because this is ESPN, it did garner attention in places that would not typically cover this in-depth if it was just someone attached to WWE. Regardless of your opinion of WWE or Fitting, these findings by ESPN were enough for them to cut bait with a highly touted producer overseeing its football operations as he was a major figure at the network.
RAW’S MINOR DECREASE FOR TAPED SHOW
WWE Raw averaged 1,453,000 viewers and 561,000 (0.43) in the 18-49 demographic for the taped show this past Monday. It was only the show’s lowest figures of the past two weeks and aired against Monday Night Football on ABC, ESPN & ESPN Deportes.
Raw fell by 5% in its overall viewership and 12% in the core demographic from last week. Raw beat everything on cable in prime time except the NFL and nothing else came close with the next ranked program doing 0.14 in the demo.
The combined football audience was 14,564,000 viewers down 15.5% from the prior week’s viewership, so it was the lowest Monday night audience since December 2. (Wrestlenomics)
In Canada, Monday’s taped edition of Raw averaged 158,900 viewers and 71,900 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 and ranked #8 among sports that night. This Monday will be the final edition of Raw on the sports network, as all WWE programming, including NXT, SmackDown, and the premium live events, moves to Netflix beginning on January 6.
As noted, TNA will move onto Sportsnet 360 with the first edition of Impact Wrestling airing on January 2 at 8 p.m. ET. If I were Sportsnet, I would program Impact or other TNA programming into the old Raw, NXT & SmackDown slots for the first week and hammer it home that there is new professional wrestling on the station for those without Netflix, even if it’s a small percentage. It is a major upgrade for TNA in the country as the shows had been previously airing on Fight Network.
COLLISION GAINS BOOST FROM LEAD-IN
AEW Collision from this past Saturday had the benefit of a (presumably) huge lead-in from the Clemson vs. Texas CFP game. The show from the Hammerstein Ballroom averaged 635,000 viewers and 268,000 (0.20) in the 18-49 demographic, which was third on cable in prime time. So, it was Collision’s second-largest audience in the history of the series going back to its debut in June 2023 but not a number that is going to be an honest barometer as the lead-in was likely the culprit for such a swelling of the numbers.
Programming Insider only reports on prime-time figures, so we don’t have the football audience yet, but Wrestlenomics will likely have the quarterly breakdown. The first quarter was probably the most-watched match of the year on Collision (and one of the highest of the year for AEW), so they were wise to place Will Ospreay and Ricochet in that slot. It should be added that Collision benefited from the lead-in, but also had intense competition airing against Tennessee vs. Ohio State on ABC, ESPN & ESPN2, and a big USC vs. UConn women’s basketball game on Fox. (Programming Insider)
BIG HOLIDAY SHOWS FOR WWE
WWE begins its holiday tour of live events with shows at Madison Square Garden and in Jacksonville, Florida tonight. WrestleTix lists over 11,600 tickets distributed in New York and 5,700 in Jacksonville. The Garden show is advertising Gunther vs. Damian Priest in a Steel Cage Match, Bron Breakker vs. Sami Zayn in a 2-of-3 Falls Match, Liv Morgan vs. IYO SKY, CM Punk vs. Ludwig Kaiser, and Seth Rollins vs. Dominik Mysterio. This will be Punk’s first non-PLE match in a year since he wrestled a pair of matches with Dominik Mysterio on last year’s holiday tour. The Jacksonville card features Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens in a Steel Cage Match, The Usos vs. Jacob Fatu & Solo Sikoa in a Street Fight, Nia Jax vs. Naomi, and DIY vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. Street Profits vs. A-Town Down Under.
On Friday, the WWE crew has a live event in Pittsburgh while the SmackDown episode is live from the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida with the final two-hour edition of the show before the additional hour begins next week.
IT’S THE FINAL RAMPAGE
AEW will air its final edition of Rampage (unless a deal is made in the future) this Friday at 10 p.m. ET on TNT followed by a Countdown to Worlds End special. This is the final taping from the Hammerstein Ballroom, which must be regarded as a success for how the show came off, the lively energy and AEW feeling rejuvenated throughout the closing stretch of the Continental Classic. It’s a major argument for the contingent arguing for smaller, full buildings rather than larger ones that become cavernous with so many empties.
Rampage was AEW’s second television vehicle after Dynamite and launched in August 2021. The peak of its run was the second episode with “The First Dance” and CM Punk’s return to professional wrestling, which attracted 1,129,000 viewers and 0.53 in the 18-49 demographic that week. Whether the show was renewed or not by WBD, it was going to be in terrible shape with the expansion of SmackDown to three hours, and the numbers had faltered to a level where it was not deemed essential in the renewal.
The show descended lower and lower on the pecking order and was easily the #3 show when Collision launched in 2023 as the promotion was now churning out five hours of original programming between TBS & TNT and expanding its pay-per-view schedule. It’s not to say AEW could revisit Rampage, but if a deal were to come its way, I would launch something fresh as the brand is not a strong one and you’re working from a deficit to revive it rather than add an hour of programming with a fresh coat of paint. The final episode is the Non-Battle of the Belts version:
*Non-Title Match: Chris Jericho vs. Anthony Bowens
*Non-Title Match: Private Party vs. Alec Price & Leo Sparrow
*Thunder Rosa vs. Leila Grey
*HOOK vs. Nick Wayne
NEWS & NOTES
**WWE sent CM Punk and Liv Morgan to the Christmas Day NFL games to promote Raw’s debut on Netflix. Punk appeared on the pre-show panel before the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game where it was noted that Snickers would be the title sponsor of the January 6 edition of Raw. Morgan was interviewed at the Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans game and appeared with her championship. John Cena was also featured in a Christmas-themed skit during the broadcast.
**Netflix released a trailer for Happy Gilmore 2 and included a shot of MJF, who was filming his role off television for a while. The movie will be released in 2025, but no date has been revealed.
**Stardom returns to Sumo Hall on Sunday for its year-end Dream Queendom event, which will stream as a pay-per-view. Karen Peterson will file a report for this show later that day with a breakdown of the matches and her analysis.
*World of Stardom Championship: Tam Nakano © vs. Saya Kamitani
*Wonder of Stardom Championship: Natsupoi © vs. Starlight Kid
*Goddesses of Stardom Championship: Momo Watanabe & Thekla © vs. Hanan & Saya Iida
*No DQ Match: Natsuko Tora vs. Maika
*No Pinfalls Match: Syuri vs. Konami
*Saori Anou vs. Mika Iwata
**On January 3, the promotion kicks off its year with New Year Dream in Tokyo including Tam Nakano taking on Sayaka Unagi, and a tag with Maika & Hanako vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu.
**Congratulations to WWE’s Maxxine Dupri (Sydney Jeannine Zmrzel) and NXT’s Anthony Luke, who were engaged during the holidays.
**The WWE Vault has been hosting its ECW Week on the popular YouTube channel. Over the week, they have added matches with Rey Mysterio and Juventud Guerrera from 1996, the Hardcore Heaven match between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn (which ended up being used for the majority of ECW’s debut on TNN for myriad reasons), Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka from One Night Stand 2005 (this was introduced by Gunther and uploaded on Christmas Eve, which is funny because there was a very memorable match between them that aired on Xmas Eve in 1999 on TNN and led to a rematch airing on New Year’s Eve the following Friday), Tajiri vs. Super Crazy in a Mexican Death Match from 2000, the history of Taz and Sabu, a Dudley Boyz retrospective, and a Top 50 Moments of ECW.
**Kenny Omega addresses Gabe Kidd before their match at Wrestle Dynasty on January 5. This will be Omega’s first match in thirteen months after battling Diverticulitis over the past year.
**Wrestling Colin has put out a great documentary on Kenta Kobashi on his YouTube channel and is well worth the hour-plus viewing.
**AEW follows its “November Rain” promotional videos for Full Gear by licensing “Welcome to the Jungle” for Worlds End:
