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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

News for AEW fans in the UK:

AEW (All Elite Wrestling) and ITV have agreed to an extension of their existing UK rights deal. ITV will continue to show weekly episodes of AEW programming, with AEW Dynamite every Friday night and AEW Collision every Wednesday night on ITV4 and ITVX. The renewal for 2025 takes ITV into its sixth year as AEW’s free-to-air UK partner, first broadcasting AEW Dynamite in 2019.

Some great news for Jake Hager:

The George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame is proud to announce the 2025 induction of Jake Hager! Hager attended the University of Oklahoma, where he excelled as a two-sport athlete in football and wrestling. In 2006, Hager set the University of Oklahoma’s record for most pins in a single season with 30, earning him All-American honors when he placed seventh in the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships.

Transitioning to professional wrestling, Hager signed with WWE in 2006, where he performed under the ring name Jack Swagger. During his tenure with WWE, he became a two-time world champion, holding the World Heavyweight Championship and the ECW Championship once each, as well as the United States Championship. Hager moved to AEW in 2019, where he competed through 2024. Hager also ventured into mixed martial arts, signing with Bellator MMA in 2017. He competed in the heavyweight division and remained undefeated with a record of 3-0 (1 NC) before announcing his retirement from MMA in 2023.

Hager’s outstanding accomplishments in both amateur and professional wrestling make him an ideal candidate for the TNTHOF. Congratulations to Jake Hager on this well-deserved honor!

Just a reminder from MLW: Holiday Rush streams FREE tonight at 7 PM ET on MLW’s YouTube Channel.

The Filthy Bros’ get deep into the Egg Nog

Matt Riddle and Tom Lawlor throw their own wild holiday bash as Riddle’s road to Kings of Colosseum continues. Can they keep the chaos in check, or will debauchery derail the momentum heading to Dallas?

MLW World Heavyweight Championship: Satoshi Kojima vs. Ultimo Guerrero

In a historic interpromotional showdown, Kojima defends against CMLL’s Ultimo Guerrero. Will Kojima close out 2024 as champion, or will Guerrero take the gold to Mexico?

Minoru Suzuki vs. AKIRA

The Death Fighter AKIRA faces the brutal Minoru Suzuki. Can AKIRA avenge CONTRA’s attacks, or will Suzuki send another violent message to the champion?

Matt Riddle vs. BRG

BRG aims to shock the world by taking down the 2024 Battle Riot winner just weeks before Riddle’s title shot. Can Riddle keep his momentum alive heading into Kings of Colosseum?

Magnus vs. Titan

CMLL stars Magnus and Titan collide in a high-flying battle. Who will soar into contention for a shot at Místico’s Middleweight Championship?

Tom Lawlor vs. Timothy Thatcher

Fresh off the injured reserve, “Filthy” Tom Lawlor takes on the dangerous Tim Thatcher. Can Lawlor complete his comeback, or will Thatcher’s punishing style prove too much?

Eric Bischoff’s Creative Chaos

Eric Bischoff’s reign of control continues to shake MLW. Will officials find a way to overturn Alex Kane’s shocking termination?

Saint Laurent’s Price of Pain

Portly promoter Saint Laurent has a twisted holiday challenge with cash on the line. Who will face the price of pain this Christmas?

World Featherweight Champion Janai Kai in Action

CONTRA’s Janai Kai defends her title. Who will step up to challenge the unstoppable champion?

Cesar Duran’s Festive Family Affair

Cesar Duran and his daughter, Salina de la Renta, celebrate a holiday reunion. But will it bring joy—or chaos—to the season?

Delmi Exo’s High-Stakes Challenge

Delmi Exo makes a bold move, potentially wagering her hair for a shot at Janai Kai’s title at Kings of Colosseum.

Paul Walter Hauser Returns

Hollywood star and MLW sensation Paul Walter Hauser is back! What’s next for this underdog in MLW action?

Here is what you will see on a taped NXT tonight:

WWE NXT Champion Trick Williams, Oba Femi and Eddie Thorpe address the NXT title situation.

WWE NXT Heritage Champion Charlie Dempsey vs, Lexis King.

Christmas Chaos Four Way: OTM vs No Quarter Catch Crew vs. The D’Angelo Family vs. Hank Walker & Tank Ledger – Winners named WWE NXT Tag Team Championship top contenders.

Stephanie Vaquer vs. Cora Jade.

Ashante Thee Adonis vs. Don Lennox.

The Unholy Union vs. Fatal Influence.

NXT spoilers for Christmas Eve

AEW Rampage ratings:

This week: 227,000 overnight viewers and 0.06 in the key demos.

Last week:  279,000 overnight viewers and 0.08 in the key demos.

Dustin Rhodes has signed a new multi-year deal with AEW.

Smackdown ratings:

This week: 1,326,000 overnight viewers and 0.37 in the key demos.

Last week: 1,530,000 overnight viewers and 0.47 in the key demos.

Here is your full NJPW Wrestle Dynasty card:

  • Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd
  • Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Ricochet
  • Shota Umino vs. Claudio Castagnoli
  • David Finlay vs. Brody King
  • Yota Tsuji vs. Jack Perry
  • NEVER Championship: Either Shingo Takagi or Konosuke Takeshita defends against Tomohiro Ishii. Will be a double title match if Takeshita remains AEW International Champion on January 4
  • IWGP Tag Team titles: Great-O-Khan & a mystery partner vs. The Young Bucks
  • NJPW Strong Women’s & RPW Undisputed Women’s British double title match: Mercedes Mone vs. Mina Shirakawa
  • Lucha gauntlet match featuring CMLL and NJPW talent
  • Kickoff match for ROH Tag Team titles: Dustin Rhodes & Sammy Guevara defend against Yoshinobu Kanemaru & SHO
  • Kickoff match for the Women’s International Cup: Persephone (CMLL) Vs. Momo Watanabe (Stardom) vs. Willow Nightingale (NJPW) vs. Athena (ROH)

Monday, December 23, 2024

A famous Hollywood crocodile named Burt, who was featured in the movie Crocodile Dundee in a memorable scene, died this past week. Record are spotty, but it’s estimated that he was at elast 90 at the time of his passing.

If he’d have met up with former WWE star Skinner, he never would have made it past 60.

WWE Producer Jamie Noble turns 46 today, and legendary Japanese star The Great Muta turns 62.

Some updated stats from WrestleTix:

TNA Wrestling: SLAMMIVERSARY
Sun • Jul 20, 2025 • 7:00 PM
UBS Arena, Belmont Park, NY

Available Tickets: 2,545
Current Setup: 4,101
Tickets Distributed: 1,556

NJPW: Battle In The Valley 2025
Sat • Jan 11, 2025 • 7:00 PM
San Jose Civic, San Jose, CA

Available Tickets: 1,120
Current Setup: 2,143
Tickets Distributed: 1,023

AEW Worlds End
Sat • Dec 28, 2024 • 7:00 PM
Addition Financial Arena, Orlando, FL

Available Tickets: 420
Current Setup: 5,943
Tickets Distributed: 5,523

WWE Live Holiday Tour
Thu • Dec 26, 2024 • 7:30 PM
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

Available Tickets: 2,755
Current Setup: 13,347
Tickets Distributed: 10,592

WWE Friday Night SmackDown
Fri Jan 17, 2025 – 4:30 PM
Pechanga Arena San Diego, San Diego, CA

Available Tickets: 1,094
Current Setup: 10,718
Tickets Distributed: 9,624

AEW Dynamite
Wed • Jan 22, 2025 • 7:00 PM
Knoxville Civic Coliseum, Knoxville, TN

Available Tickets: 1,100
Current Setup: 2,010
Tickets Distributed: 910

AEW presents ALL IN TEXAS
Sat • Jul 12, 2025 • 7:00 PM
Globe Life Field, Arlington, TX

Available Tickets: 8,150
Current Setup: 18,140
Tickets Distributed: 9,990

WWE Monday Night RAW
Mon • Jan 06, 2025 • 4:30 PM
Intuit Dome, Inglewood, CA

Available Tickets: 2,224
Current Setup: 14,856
Tickets Distributed: 12,632

Here is what you see on the taped episode of Raw tonight:

  • Iyo Sky vs. Alba Fyre vs. Natalya – Women’s Intercontinental Championship match
  • Chad Gable vs. Akira Tozawa
  • Damian Priest vs. Dominik Mysterio
  • Dexter Lumis vs. The Miz
  • Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods to appear
  • Drew McIntyre to appear
  • Jackie Redmond to interview Seth Rollins

Here are your spoilers:

Raw spoilers for next week

Slam’s John Powell has this week’s streaming calendar no matter which service or services you are subscribed to here:

What’s New To Stream This Week December 23 to 27th

A reminder that MLW will air Holiday Rush on Christmas Eve like on their YouTube channel. The card is:

  • MLW Champion Satoshi Kojima vs. Ultimo Guerrero
  • MLW Featherweight Champion Janai Kai vs. Tiffani Avatar
  • AKIRA vs. Minoru Suzuki.
  • Matt Riddle vs. BRG.
  • Tom Lawlor vs. Timothy Thatcher
  • Magnus vs. Titan.

Happy Festivus. We hope you survive the feats of strength and that the list of ways you disappointed others is not too bad.

Joe Malenko (Jody Simon) was named as an inductee into the Florida Mixed Martial Arts Hall of Fame Class of 2025. He is, of course, the son of the Great Malenko and brother of Dean Malenko. We talked to Jody last year ahead of an award at the Cauliflower Alley Club.

Scott Teal of CrowbarPress.com announced that the long-awaited second part of the “Great Mephisto” Frankie Cain book will be out in January 2025. We reviewed part one here: Frankie Cain autobiography is ‘a beacon of light in a congested genre’

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Here is a great story about the WWE coming to Texas for the first time and there being a lot of resistance.

On the Ring the Belle podcast former WWE Superstar Shelly Martinez made these claims: “WWE has tried to erase me. It took them a really long time to even acknowledge me. They usually only do it around October, which makes sense, but there was a long time when they didn’t at all. I wasn’t on their alumni page or anything. There are people who’ve done way worse than I did. Oh, what? I’ve got a big mouth, so you kicked me out? Big deal. There are people who’ve done shady things, cost the company money, and yet I’m the one they’re trying to erase. That’s when I realized, dude, it’s all a work. It doesn’t even matter.”

Netflix had more announcements about WWE migrating there:

“Netflix members in the United States will not be able to watch SmackDown, NXT, and WWE premium live events. Members in select countries will be able to watch SmackDown and NXT weekly with their Netflix subscriptions, as well as premium live events like WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Royal Rumble, with more countries added in 2026 and beyond. Premium live events are also included with your Netflix subscription when available.”

“Episodes will be available to watch immediately after the live stream. If watching live isn’t supported on your device, these events are available a few days later for you to watch anytime, like other titles.”

Some news from WWE:

ELP has returned to NJPW on today’s Road to Tokyo Dome show. He is medically cleared to return after a cancer diagnosis. ELP could be part of the Ren Narita versus Jeff Cobb versus Ryohei Oiwa NJPW TV title match at Wrestle Kingdom.

A message from NJPW:

“Hiroyoshi Tenzan, who was scheduled to compete on Sunday December 22’s Road to Tokyo Dome card, has presented with a fever. While he has tested negative for both influenza and COVID, he will miss action on the night out of an abundance of caution. We apologize to fans who were looking forward to seeing Tenzan wrestle, and appreciate your understanding.

The following change has been made to tonight’s card:

1st Match

Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs Boltin Oleg & Toru Yano →

Satoshi Kojima vs Boltin Oleg

NJPW joins fans in wishing Tenzan a fast recovery.”

 

I am sure I am not the only one who thinks the process of WWE moving to Netflix has been an utter shit show thus far. It kind of mirrors the streaming world nowadays with different rights in different regions causing so many issues for viewers. It is why here in Canada many people subscribe to VPNs so they can access not only the Canadian streaming libraries on various services but switch to American, British, etc, libraries so they can get the full use out of their memberships. These rights issues have made understanding how the move is going to effect you in your particular region very confusing. What Netflix and the WWE needs to do is create special communications for each region that lays out everything in a clear cut manner. In moving WWE content to Netflix there will of course be a delay in archived content arriving. That is to be expected when one considers how much archived content the WWE has on the Network but fans shouldn’t be scrambling around in the dark trying to figure out how to keep watching WWE content in their particular region of the world. No such massive transition will be without bumps in the road or glitches but both the WWE and Netflix could do a far better job of communicating the move to their fans, viewers.

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Jim Smallman has left NXT’s creative team.

Be aware that if you watch the RoH media scrum on YouTube from last night the first half an hour is dead air, nothing.

House of Torture had a message for the RoH Tag Team Champions:

In case you missed it, MIA AEW star Danhausen appeared at RoH Final Battle last night after a year of not being featured on AEW television. He emerged as a masked man from under the ring to clock M+M’s manager Mason Madden in the “lower abdomen” in the Mansoor versus Atlantis Jr. match.

Friday, December 20, 2024

RoH’s Final Battle PPV is tonight. Here is the card:

ROH Champion Chris Jericho vs. Matt Cardona.

ROH Women’s Champion Athena vs. Billie Starkz.

ROH Women’s TV Champion Red Velvet vs. Leyla Hirsh.

ROH Tag Team Champions Dustin Rhodes & Sammy Guevara vs. The Righteous – Texas Bullrope Match.

ROH TV Champion Brian Cage vs. Willie Mack vs. Mark Davis vs. AR Fox vs. Blake Christian vs. Komander – Survival of the Fittest.

ROH Pure Champion Lee Moriarty has an Open Challenge.

QT Marshall vs. Jay Lethal.

Mansoor vs Atlantis Jr.

Katsuyori Shibata vs Tommy Billington.

Zero Hour:

Matt Taven & Mike Bennett vs the Infantry.

Harley Cameron vs Stardom’s HANAKO.

Dark Order vs. The Grizzled Young Veterans

Lee Johnson & EJ Nduka vs The Gates of Agony.

Charlotte Flair could be returning soon:

On last night’s episode of TNA Impact – which was a Best Of 2024 compilation episode – the company announced these Best Of awards, which were voted on by fans:

  • Knockout of the Year: Jordynne Grace
  • Moment of the Year: Joe Hendry going viral (for his theme song becoming a mainstream hit on streaming sites)
  • The One to Watch in 2025: Leon Slater
  • Men’s Tag Team of the Year: ABC (Ace Austin and Chris Bey)

This week’s Level Up taping was the last for WWE. The show is being discontinued.

Remember, tonight’s episode of Smackdown was taped last week. You can find your spoilers here:

Smackdown spoilers

Slam’s John Powell has your streaming schedule for the weekend here:

What’s New To Stream This Weekend December 20th to 22nd

AEW Dynamite ratings:

This week: 625,000 overnight viewers and 0.19 in the key demos.

Last week: 594,000 overnight viewers and 0.17 in the key demos.

WWE’s Executive VP of Talent Relations and Head of Communications, Chris Legentil, has stated: “This year alone, we did more than half our (premium live events) outside the U.S. Look for more of that when we’re in partnership with Netflix because we’re going to be working with them hand-in-hand to select locations across the world where we can grow our audience and hopefully gain some subscribers for them.”

Thursday, December 19, 2024

SlamWrestling.net’s very own Nathan Hatton has been published in the academic historical magazine Intersections (v7, i3) by the University of Toronto Press. His piece on early women’s wrestling in Canada begins on page 20 of the publication.

We now have an official publication date for Irresistible Force: The Life & Times of Gorilla Monsoon from ECW Press! Look for it September 30, 2025! It will indeed be a happening. And I promise you, it will be worth the wait.

Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson and his co-stars from the new Christmas movie Red One competed in an ugly-sweater- making competition for EW.com.

The ‘retired’ Logan Paul has been shifted from Smackdown to Raw.

In case you missed it:

In the mood for some Christmas horror? Slam’s John Powell has your list right here:

Ranking All The Christmas TV horror

NXT ratings:

This week: 708,000 overnight viewers. 0.16 in the key demos.

Last week: 680,000 overnight viewers. 0.17 in the key demos.

Here are your Rampage spoilers:

Konusuke Takeshita and Brian Cage beat Powerhouse Hobbs and Kyle Davis.

Action Andretti and Lio Rush beat Goldy & Myles Hawkins. Private Party and Top Flight joined a brawl.

Willow Nightingale defeated Harley Cameron.  Penelope Ford attacked Nightingale.

Brody King defeated Komander.