Category: AEW

Tony Nese Has Reportedly Signed A Deal With AEW

Tony Nese has apparently signed an AEW deal after appearing on Dynamite and wrestling matches on Dark.

Tony Nese is apparently All Elite after being shown in the crowd on Dynamite and wrestling a couple of matches on Dark.

WWE has released a lot of wrestlers in 2021 in an attempt to trim its budget and seemingly streamline its roster. The company’s locker room may well have become a little more crowded than Vince McMahon intended when he appeared to be offering anyone and everyone under his employ a new deal in an attempt to stop them joining AEW.

Fast forward two years and a lot of the wrestlers let go have been granted a new lease on life under Tony Khan. Malakai Black, Andrade, and Miro, formerly known as Rusev, are all now under contract in AEW. It now seems as if Tony Nese has joined them, or at least that’s what Dave Meltzer has claimed during a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio.

“He did the Dark tapings in Orlando and I think he wrestled more than one match. He’s signed so that’s the deal,” Meltzer said. Nese wrestled two matches during AEW’s Dark tapings over the weekend. The first was against Fuego Del Sol and the second was a win versus DeMarcio James. AEW tapes Dark in batches, so those matches may air at any point on YouTube over the course of the next few weeks.

Prior to wrestling a couple of Dark matches, Nese was shown sitting in the crowd during Dynamite. A tactic NXT used to employ to reveal its new signings. Both times Nese was shown came during World Title Eliminator Tournament matches. Since the bracket for that tournament is already full, the timing of Nese’s appearance implies his first rivalry will be with someone who isn’t going to win.

Nese was never given much chance to show WWE what he was capable of while under contract with the company, at least not on a big stage. The Premier Athlete spent the majority of his time on 205 Live. Nese wrestled his final match on 205 Live on June 15, 2021, and was released from his contract ten days later.

Source: TheSportster

Lance Archer Gives Update After Injury Scare On AEW Dynamite

On Saturday night’s AEW Dynamite, Lance Archer wrestled Eddie Kingston in a Title Eliminator Tournament Match.

During the match, Archer went for a moonsault off the top rope and landed on his head. He was checked on at ringside by the referee and Dr. Sampson, got back in the ring, and Kingston rolled him up for the win.

Archer commented afterwards, thanking AEW for taking care of him and letting the fans know he’ll be back.

“Listen. We choose to do this and take our health n lives in our hands every night,” Archer wrote. “I’ve done that move hundreds of times over my career. Just under rotated. Coulda been MUCH worse. Thank you to ALL at @AEW for taking AMAZING care of me and protecting me. I’ll BE BACK!”

This morning, Archer joked “Ice for the MiniHawk, too!” showing an action figure of himself laying on an ice pack.

On the latest Wrestling Observer Radio it was reported he passed all of his tests backstage. AEW even did a concussion check during the match and wouldn’t have bothered with a finish if it was any worse. Archer apparently wanted to keep wrestling, but was “upset backstage” that they couldn’t give the match a proper ending.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

AEW Rampage Preview 10/22/21

Tonight’s AEW Rampage will be at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida. This event was part of AEW’s tapings from last week.

* AEW World Women’s Championship: Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D. (c) vs. Anna Jay

* World Title Eliminator Tournament Commences: Orange Cassidy vs. Powerhouse Hobbs

* PAC vs. Andrade El Idolo II

* TBS Women’s Championship Bracket Announced

AEW Rampage Numbers Vs. Supersized SmackDown, Tony Khan Excited

AEW Rampage tied SmackDown in the key 18-49 demographic last week, and they drew more viewers in the 30-minute head-to-head competition.

The first 30 minutes of AEW Rampage went head-to-head with WWE’s “Supersized” edition of SmackDown last week, and the two shows wound up tying in the key 18-49 demographic.

Not only that, but according to PW Torch, Rampage actually drew higher viewership than SmackDown during the 30 minutes of head-to-head competition. The report stated that in the 18-49 demographic, Rampage recorded 328,000 viewers compared to 285,000 for SmackDown.

According to Showbuzz Daily (h/t WrestlingInc.com), SmackDown averaged 866,000 viewers, and Rampage averaged 578,000 viewers. Both shows recorded 0.24 ratings in the 18-49 demographic. It’s important to note that the Supersized show aired on FS1, as Game 1 of the 2021 ALCS between the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros aired on FOX, and it recorded 6.136 million viewers (via WrestlingInc.com).

Following the release of the numbers for Rampage and SmackDown, WrestleVotes reported “the numbers news is a HOT topic right now backstage” in WWE.

WWE greatly attempted to stack up the Supersized edition of SmackDown, which featured a singles match between Sasha Banks and Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch. The match was won by the former thanks to assistance from Bianca Belair . Those three will face off for the Raw Women’s title in a triple threat match at Crown Jewel.

Zelina Vega defeated Carmella in their Queen’s Crown tournament semifinal, and Vega will face the winner of Doudrop and Shayna Baszler at Crown Jewel. Finn Balor got past Sami Zayn in the King of the Ring semifinal, and he’ll challenge the winner of Jinder Mahal vs. Xavier Woods at Crown Jewel. The show closed with Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns signing their Universal Championship match contract for Crown Jewel.

Though SmackDown predictably finished with far more total viewers than Rampage, this was a giant win for AEW. Their “B” show was able to outdraw the final 30 minutes of SmackDown, which has enjoyed much greater viewership than Raw in recent years.

AEW already soundly defeated NXT in the “Wednesday Night Wars”, and now they’re starting to gain momentum against WWE’s main show. It’ll be interesting to see if WWE reacts to this, and if we’ll see more direct competition between SmackDown and Rampage before long.

Tony Khan Excited:

Tony Khan is pretty happy on Monday after learning how AEW Rampage fared in the numbers while up against WWE SmackDown this past Friday.

Tony Khan is a pretty happy camper on Monday after learning that AEW Rampage not only kept up with WWE SmackDown in the ratings this past Friday, but actually beat the blue brand in some of the key demos they use to measure the successes and failures of a professional wrestling television program. While SmackDown was boosted by the over-50 demo and won in total viewers, the argument being made is that advertisers care most about the areas where AEW Rampage won.

Heading into Friday night, there was a lot of talk about how AEW was going to compete head-to-head with WWE for the first real time since they became a company a couple of years ago. This wasn’t NXT versus AEW Dynamite. No, this was one of AEW’s top shows versus one of WWE’s top shows and AEW President Tony Khan was hyped for it. He called out Raw by saying “it sucked” and he added a buy-in show to AEW while going commercial-free for the first 30 minutes to counter SmackDown’s commercial-free last 30 minutes. In some cases, Khan was criticized for calling out the competition so much, but it’s clear his strategy paid off.

The complete demographic breakdown for last Friday were as follows:

  • People 18-49 – 0.24 (SmackDown), 0.24 (Rampage)
  • Females 18-49 – 0.16 (SmackDown), 0.14 (Rampage)
  • Males 18-49 – 0.32 (SmackDown), 0.34 (Rampage)
  • People 18-34 – 0.15 (SmackDown), 0.17 (Rampage)
  • Females 12-34 – 0.10 (SmackDown), 0.10 (Rampage)
  • Males 12-34 – 0.20 (SmackDown), 0.16 (Rampage)
  • People 25-54 – 0.28 (SmackDown), 0.28 (Rampage)
  • People 50+ – 0.43 (SmackDown), 0.21 (Rampage)

Kahn said in a tweet before the numbers were revealed, “I’m only estimating but this suggests to me that we probably did pretty well in the yet-to-be-released head-to-head ratings from 10 pm-10:30 pm, a fight that I didn’t ask for or start, but one for which I was more than willing to show up and in which I was thrilled to participate.” When the numbers were revealed, he was clearly excited about it.

The ratings were extremely close and the demos tight, but this is a big victory for AEW in some respects.

While this was a one-time thing and SmackDown will shift back to its regular time and channel this Friday, one has to wonder if Khan is feeling good about his product and wondering if it’s time to try and take on WWE a bit more often. It is interesting how the supporters for each promotion have come out in droves to back both AEW and WWE. It certainly goes to show that competition in the wrestling industry certainly gets the fans going.

Source: TheSportster

AEW Dynamite Preview 10/16/21

Saturday night’s AEW Dynamite from the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida.

Below is the card as of this posting:

* Bryan Danielson vs. Bobby Fish

* Malakai Black vs. Daunte Martin

* The Lucha Brothers (Fénix & Pentagon Jr.) (c) vs. TBA (AEW World Tag Team Championship)

* World Title Eliminator Tournament Bracket: AEW will reveal the AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament. The final of this tournament will take place at Full Gear PPV

AEW Rampage Preview 10/15/21

Tonight’s AEW Rampage will be live at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida.

The Buy-In pre-show at 9pm ET on YouTube:

* Tay Conti vs. Santana Garrett

* Bobby Fish vs. Lee Moriarty

* Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki

AEW Rampage at 10pm ET on TNT:

* CM Punk vs. Matt Sydal

* Ruby Soho vs. The Bunny

* Inner Circle (Chris Jericho, Jake Hager & AEW TNT Champion Sammy Guevara) vs. Men of the Year (Ethan Page & Scorpio Sky) & the debuting former UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior dos Santos (w/Dan Lambert & Jorge Masvidal)

Tony Khan Reveals He Suffered Injury During AEW Segment

With Tony Khan mostly staying behind the scenes of AEW, an injury would seem unlikely. And yet the AEW President has recently found himself on the AEW Injury Report. In an interview with the New York Post, Khan revealed he had been hurt in an off camera incident at AEW Grand Slam, where American Top Team’s Junior dos Santos injured Khan’s ribs.

“He cracked them (my ribs),” Khan said. “I’ll be OK. But he legitimately cracked them. I’ll be OK. It’s been a few weeks, but I’m sleeping on my right side.”

The incident occurred following the match between Inner Circle members Chris Jericho and Jake Hager take on the Men of the Year (Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky), where American Top Team members (including dos Santos) laid Jericho and Hager out. Khan would confront American Top Team on the ramp right after, where the two, according to Khan, improvised a spot that led to the injury.

“It felt just right in the moment,” Khan said. “It was just kind of improvised. He’s a very strong man. I love the gasp pop it got. I was definitely asking for it.”

Khan doesn’t hold any ill will towards dos Santos, and even revealed that he no sold the injury to those in the back, returning to his seat in the GO position as if everything was fine. He’s also thrilled with the work dos Santos and American Top Team have put in thus far, both in giving AEW attention in helping to elevate Sky and Page.

“We built something very strong now with American Top Team and AEW,” Khan said. “We’ve gotten great crossover media opportunities because of dos Santos, (Jorge) Masvidal, Paige VanZant and Andrei Arlovski. It’s given good visibility and credibility to AEW and also Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page.”

dos Santos, accompanied by fellow MMA star Jorge Masvidal, will make his in ring debut for AEW this Saturday on a special AEW Dynamite, teaming with Sky and Page to take on Chris Jericho, Jake Hager and AEW TNT Champion Sammy Guevara. Given his experience with dos Santos, Khan expects him to be a handful for the Inner Circle members.

“I’m fine. I’m a not wuss,” Khan stated. “But he did break my ribs. So he’s going to be a handful in the ring for sure. I can tell you.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

AEW Adds Buy-In To Friday’s Rampage, Tony Khan Backtracks On Competition Comments

AEW seems serious about getting more viewers than SmackDown this week, but Tony Khan has walked back what he said about competition.

AEW has added a Buy-In show to this Friday’s Rampage in response to WWE tacking an extra 30 minutes onto the end of SmackDown.

Wrestling wars on television have usually been reserved for shows happening on the same night and in the same timeslot. Raw and Nitro battling on Monday, Dynamite going head to head with NXT. However, now that NXT has moved to Tuesdays and AEW‘s audience continues to grow, Dynamite’s numbers are being compared to Raw’s especially when it comes to key demographics.

Raw can take a break this week. Not just because Dynamite has been moved to Saturday, but also because all eyes will be on SmackDown and Rampage. Last week, WWE announced SmackDown will be Supersized this Friday and run for two and a half hours. That means the final 30 minutes of the show will run at the same time as the first half of Rampage.

Tony Khan responded to the news by tweeting that he can’t wait to beat WWE’s “main show”. In what is presumably an attempt to drum up as much interest in Rampage as possible, AEW has now announced it will be holding an hour-long Buy-In for Friday night’s show on its YouTube channel. The pre-show will include a match between Bryan Danielson and Minoru Suzuki, the first time the pair has clashed since 2004.

https://twitter.com/WFAN660/status/1447953614450872321

Not only is the Buy-In an attempt to get as many people to tune in to Rampage at 10 pm, but it also technically means an AEW show will now be going up against SmackDown for a full 90 minutes. However, Khan has backed down a little since the comments he made abiut beating WWE over the weekend.

“It’s not about competing with them. It’s about doing our best show,” Khan admitted during an appearance on Moose & Maggie. Whether this Friday is considered competition by either side or not, the numbers after the fact are going to be dissected no matter what. It’s hard to imagine Rampage will draw more viewers than SmackDown, but it will be fun to compare the two to see how they differ from previous weeks when both are on at the same time.

Source: TheSportster

AEW Rampage Preview 10/8/21

Tonight’s AEW Rampage airs on TNT from The Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

* CM Punk vs. Daniel Garcia (w/2point0)

* AEW World Tag Team Championship: The Lucha Brothers (c) (w/Alex Abrahantes) vs. The Acclaimed

* Philly Street Fight: FTW Champion Ricky Starks vs. Brian Cage

* Jade Cargill (w/Smart Mark Sterling) vs. Skye Blue

AEW Unveils TBS Title, Announces Tournament To Crown The First Champion

AEW has unveiled its TBS Title and announced there will be a tournament to crown the first champion.

AEW is adding a new title to its ranks: the TBS Championship. A women’s title celebrating Dynamite’s move to TBS in 2022.

AEW‘s television journey has been an interesting one despite only turning two this week. Dynamite has aired on TNT weekly since its inception. On Wednesdays most of the time, but the day of the week has changed occasionally to accommodate for live sport. It then added Rampage to the mix earlier this year, a shorter show which also airs on TNT every Friday.

That all changes in the new year. Dynamite will remain on Wednesday nights but will be on TBS rather than TNT. To celebrate that move, which takes effect on January 5, 2022, AEW has created a brand new championship. The TBS Championship which fans got their very first look at when it was unveiled on Dynamite’s anniversary show this week.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1445917228407394304

While Tony Khan was the one teasing a big announcement before the show, it was Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards who were afforded the opportunity to reveal it to the world. Edwards held up the title as Schiavone announced that a tournament will take place to crown its first champion. According to The Wrestling Observer, the tournament will begin on the January 5 edition of Dynamite, the show’s TBS debut.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1445921755185491970

The first handful of participants in the tournament were revealed later on in the show via the video package above. Ruby Soho, Jade Cargill, Thunder Rosa, and Skye Blue or stated their intent to become the first-ever TBS Champion, implying they will all be involved in the tournament when it begins at the turn of the year. The title itself looks very similar to AEW’s TNT Championship.

Of all the things AEW has been criticized for during its first three years, the lack of a push for its female stars might be at the top of that list for many fans. Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa’s brutal no DQ match felt like a turning point in that regard. While the women’s division probably still doesn’t get the time it deserves, a new title, and hopefully more female signings, will almost definitely change that.

Source: TheSportster