POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is LIVE at 10 p.m. ET tonight for all members of the POST Wrestling Café as we chat New Year’s Revolution, and all the news from New Year Dash & take your calls.
**On Saturday, WH Park & Karen Peterson are back with POST Puroresu chatting New Year Dash and all the major news about from a busy week in Japanese wrestling.
**Bruce Lord joins Kate from Montreal on Saturday night for Collision Course on the POST Wrestling Café.
**Below are the categories for the BEST & WORST of 2023 Show this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on the POST Wrestling Café:
- BEST WRESTLER (Female)
- BEST TAG TEAM
- BEST WRESTLER (Male)
- BEST FEUD
- WORST FEUD
- BEST NON-WRESTLING MEDIA
- MOST IMPROVED
- BIGGEST SETBACK
- BEST ON THE MIC
- WORST ON THE MIC
- BEST CHARACTER
- WORST CHARACTER
- BEST WEEKLY TV SHOW
- BEST PPV
- WORST PPV
- BEST ENTRANCE
- BEST PROMOTION
- WORST PROMOTION
- MATCH OF THE YEAR
- WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR
- BIGGEST STORY OF THE YEAR
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: POST Puroresu with WH Park & Karen Peterson
Saturday: Collision Course with Kate from Montreal & Bruce Lord (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: The BEST & WORST of 2023 (LIVE at 8 p.m. ET on POST Wrestling Café)
AEW VIEWERSHIP – DECEMBER 2023
Data courtesy: Wrestlenomics.com
Dynamite
Overall Viewership
December 2023: 823,000
November 2023: 832,000
October 2023: 825,000*
September 2023: 904,000
December 2022: 906,000
Adults 18-49
December 2023: 369,000
November 2023: 362,000
October 2023: 363,000*
September 2023: 411,000
December 2022: 391,000
Adults 18-34
December 2023: 144,000
November 2023: 137,000
October 2023: 151,000*
September 2023: 154,000
December 2022: 157,000
*Excluding one episode that aired on Tuesday night
The month-to-month difference of Dynamite was miniscule with small decreases in overall viewership and 18-49 and a minor uptick in 18-34. Compared to December 2022, TBS is in 3.5% fewer homes with Dynamite’s viewership down by 9%, a decrease of 6% in 18-49, and a drop of 8% in 18-34.
December included the Winter is Coming episode with this year’s show including Jon Moxley vs. Swerve Strickland as part of the Continental Classic, which appears to have had a great impact on Collision numbers than Dynamite. December also featured the first singles match between Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, which only drew a normal audience and was actually the least-watched Dynamite of the month. December peaked with the last show of the year featuring the final round-robin matches in the Gold League and the only match Bryan Danielson had on Dynamite in the month.
Collision
Overall Viewership
December 2023: 464,000
November 2023: 360,000*
October 2023: 462,000
September 2023: 435,000
Adults 18-49
December 2023: 195,000
November 2023: 126,000*
October 2023: 173,000
September 2023: 177,000
Adults 18-34
December 2023: 68,000
November 2023: 36,000*
October 2023: 74,000
September 2023: 55,000
*Excluding one episode that aired on Friday night
Collision had a much better month in December built around the Continental Classic and a weekly match involving Bryan Danielson, who feels like as notable of a difference-maker as AEW has on its regular rotation of performers.
The numbers held up well on December 9 when airing against NXT Deadline.
Overall viewership increased by 29% from November, 18-49 grew by 55%, and 18-34 increased by 89%. It was a combination of a really bad November and a really good December. January is going to be a tough month with NFL games on Saturday night and going against one of the biggest WWE events of the year with the Royal Rumble on January 27.
For comparison, if we throw out the debut episode of Collision (which did such a huge audience that skews the average), the nine episodes from July 1 through August 26 (CM Punk’s last appearance on Collision), averaged 549,000 viewers and 235,000 in the 18-49 demographic. So, December is not near the CM Punk level but we are also assessing Collision airing against college football weekly, which those nine episodes didn’t have to face.
Rampage
Overall Viewership
December 2023: 337,000
November 2023: 300,000*
October 2023: 358,000
September 2023: 359,000**
December 2022: 464,000
Adults 18-49
December 2023: 137,000
November 2023: 141,000*
October 2023: 154,000
September 2023: 157,000**
December 2022: 167,000
Adults 18-34
December 2023: 44,000
November 2023: 48,000*
October 2023: 52,000
September 2023: 54,000**
December 2022: 53,000
*Excluding one episode that aired on Saturday
**Includes two-hour Grand Slam edition
The month-to-month differences in 18-49 and 18-34 are minor while viewership saw a jump of 12%.
From December 2022 to this past month, TNT is also in 3.5% fewer homes, the same rate of decline as TBS.
In December, they did a terrible number on December 15 with a 0.08 in the 18-49 demo and was its second lowest ever in Rampage’s regular timeslot. The top episode of the month was on December 8 with a rare Bryan Danielson match on the show against Daniel Garcia and did 341k viewers and 0.12 in the demo.
The yearly declines are sizable with a 27% loss of overall viewership, an 18% decline in 18-49, and a 17% loss in the 18-34 demo. There is nothing new to glean from the numbers beyond the usual observations of Rampage going from the #2 show to the #3 show and being a showcase for some of its less featured stars to have great wrestling matches and in particular, adding a Lucha flavor of late.
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE ends its New Year’s Knockout Week with a New Year’s Revolution edition of SmackDown from the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. By the end of the show, we should have at least two matches confirmed for the Royal Rumble with the opponent for Roman Reigns and the winner of the #1 Contenders tournament facing Logan Paul. Both Reigns and Paul are set to appear on the show tonight with the following announced for the show:
*AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton vs. LA Knight – Winner challenges Roman Reigns at the Royal Rumble
*#1 Contenders Tournament: Kevin Owens vs. Santos Escobar
*Women’s Championship: IYO SKY © vs. Michin
*Pretty Deadly vs. Butch & TBA
*Roman Reigns to appear
*Logan Paul to appear
**WrestleTix reports over 12,900 tickets distributed for SmackDown in Vancouver tonight.
**AEW Rampage airs at 10 p.m. ET on TNT with the taping from Newark this past week and will include:
*The Hardys & Mark Briscoe vs. Kip Sabian, The Butcher & The Blade
*Kris Statlander & Willow Nightingale vs. Kennedi Hardcastle & Notorious Mimi
*Anna Jay vs. Hikaru Shida
*ROH Pure Championship: Wheeler Yuta © vs. Komander
**Collision on Saturday night from the Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte has Eddie Kingston vs. Trent Beretta for the Continental Crown, FTR vs. Malakai Black & Buddy Matthews, as well as Sting & Darby Allin appearing in Sting’s final appearance in Charlotte before retiring.
**WWE has released a special on Mick Foley coinciding with the 25th anniversary of his first WWF Championship win. This was the era where Raw was live on alternating weeks where they would do a live show on Monday night and tape the following week’s program on Tuesday. Foley won the title in Worcester, Massachusetts on a taped show that was aired on January 4, 1999, against a major episode of Monday Nitro from the Georgia Dome in front of more than 38,000 people and 34,788 paid. On Nitro, in a controversial move, Tony Schiavone was instructed to spoil the result of Foley’s pending title win to keep fans from changing the channel. Instead, there was a huge switch when fans learned that something significant was about to happen on Raw and wanted to see the title change. People did return to Nitro because throughout the show they had promoted Hulk Hogan’s return to the ring to challenge Kevin Nash for the WCW Championship ending with the dreaded “Finger Poke of Doom” and one of the legendary botches in company history. This was a seismic night in the Monday Night War and a true shift in the momentum, which was on an upward swing throughout 1998 for Raw and falling for WCW, but WCW was still exceptionally strong by the end of 1998. The glaring stat that told the tale was WCW’s return to the Georgia Dome six months later where the paid attendance dropped 44% from the January show. Foley held the title for several weeks and bounced it back and forth with The Rock to get him set for Steve Austin at WrestleMania 15. During this stretch, Foley and Rock had four consecutive pay-per-view matches from November until February and wrestled on the Halftime Heat special during the Super Bowl that year in a taped Empty Arena match.
**WWE has live events in Spokane and Wenatchee, Washington this weekend. The advertising for both nights includes Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes vs. Shinsuke Nakamura. Monday’s episode of Raw is in Portland and airs against the College Football Playoff National Championship game between Michigan and Washington. CM Punk is on Monday’s show and includes Cody Rhodes vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and a rematch with Katana Chance & Kayden Carter vs. Chelsea Green & Piper Niven for the tag titles.
**The announced attendance for Wrestle Kingdom 18 was 27,422 and was up 5% from last year’s figure. It is far from the peak years between 2018-2020 but above the shows from 2016 & 2017. (Wrestlenomics)
**MLW’s Kings of Colosseum event streams on Saturday night on TrillerTV+ from the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. The show includes the return of Matt Riddle to the promotion and takes on Jacob Fatu, Alex Kane vs. Richard Holliday for the MLW World Heavyweight title, Satoshi Kojima vs. Sami Callihan, Rickey Shane Page vs. AKIRA in a Taipei Death Match for the National Openweight title, Janai Kai vs. Hyper Misao for the World Featherweight title, Love Doug against Brett Ryan Gosselin, Matthew Justice & 1 Called Manders vs. Tom Lawlor & Joshua Bishop for the MLW tag titles, and Alex Price & Wasted Youth against Tony Deppen, Griffin McCoy & TJ Crawford.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH’s next major card is January 13 with Go Shiozaki challenging Kenoh for the GHC Heavyweight Championship and putting his “I Am NOAH” moniker on the line and cannot be referred to that title if he loses. The card will include Manabu Soya vs. Ryohei Oiwa, Ulka Sasaki (former UFC fighter) against Shuhei Taniguchi, Titus Alexander & Vinnie Massaro vs. Jack Morris & LJ Cleary, and a rematch from January 2 with HAYATA & YO-HEY vs. Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf vs. Ninja Mack & Alejandro (which was a tremendous match). The card streams on January 13 at 4:30 a.m. ET on Wrestle Universe.
**The reality series Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez will premiere on Hulu on February 2. The series will profile the couple in the lead-up to this past year`s WrestleMania and is set for eight episodes on the streaming platform.
**Alisha Edwards has been added to the Knockouts Ultimate X match at Hard to Kill joining Gisele Shaw, Xia Brookside, Jody Threat, and Tasha Steelz. Hard to Kill is next weekend from The Pearl at the Palms in Las Vegas.
**Mustafa Ali’s opponent on the C*4 Wrestling show on January 19 will be Vaughn Vertigo at the Preston Event Centre.
*****
MCU L8R: What If…? Season 2 Review (Part 2)
Rich Fann, WH Park and Scrump of PWTcast return to cover episodes 5-9 of Marvel’s What If…? Season 2.
*****
WRESTLE KINGDOM 18
John Pollock, Wai Ting & Bruce Lord review NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 in Tokyo Dome featuring SANADA vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP World Heavyweight Title and Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite following Worlds End with Adam Cole speaking after his reveal as “The Devil”.
*****
POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston are joined by a pair of guests to go over the AEW Worlds End press conference and discuss the state of NJPW.
*****
upNXT – New Year’s Evil
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to review WWE NXT New Year’s Evil from January 2nd, 2024 featuring Ilja Dragunov vs Trick Williams for the NXT Championship!
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw: Day 1 with The Rock’s surprise return and Seth Rollins defending the WWE World Championship against Drew McIntyre.
*****
AEW WORLDS END REVIEW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Worlds End 2023 featuring MJF vs. Samoa Joe for the AEW Championship and Jon Moxley vs. Eddie Kingston in the Continental Classic Final.
*****
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