WWE: Carlito vs. Santos Escobar Announced for Survivor Series 2023, More on NXT Nov. 14, 2023 Viewership, More News

Nov 18, 2023

Carlito vs. Santos Escobar Announced for Survivor Series 2023

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Evansville, Indiana featured two new matches officially announced for the card of Survivor Series 2023, which takes place on November 25th at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois.

As noted before, the first new match is a Women’s WarGames match of Damage CTRL (Bayley, Asuka, Kairi Sane, & IYO SKY) vs. Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, Shotzi, & Becky Lynch.

The second new match announced is a singles match of Carlito vs. Santos Escobar.

This new match was initially setup during last week’s SmackDown show involving Carlito accusing Escobar of being the person responsible for costing Rey Mysterio his United States Championship to Logan Paul at Crown Jewel 2023. Later in the show, Escobar responded by attacking Mysterio and turning on the LWO.

During Friday’s show, Escobar gave an in-ring promo bashing Mysterio and revealed that the reason why he attacked Mysterio was due to him being upset over Mysterio becoming the U.S. Champion that he felt he deserved instead, Mysterio taking over the LWO and bringing in Carlito when he wanted to be the one to rebuild the group, and Mysterio siding with the outsider Carlito over him over Carlito’s accusations. Escobar attacked both Joaquin Cruz and Cruz Del Toro after both refused to join his side when he demanded they follow him. This led to Carlito running out to save Cruz and Del Toro and a match made official between Carilto and Escobar for Survivor Series 2023.

Carlito vs. Santos Escobar has been confirmed for Survivor Series pic.twitter.com/FqeAO1mYRV
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) November 18, 2023

Current card for WWE Survivor Series WarGames 2023:

Men’s WarGames match – Judgement Day (JD McDonagh, Dominik Mysterio, Finn Balor, & Damian Priest) vs. Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, Jey Uso, & Cody Rhodes
Women’s WarGames match – Damage CTRL (Bayley, Asuka, Kairi Sane, & IYO SKY) vs. Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, Shotzi, & Becky Lynch
WWE Women’s World Championship – Zoey Stark vs. Rhea Ripley (c)
WWE International Championship – The Miz vs. Gunther (c)
Carlito vs. Santos Escobar

More on NXT Viewership for November 14, 2023

The November 14th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a very large decline in overall viewership, a large decline in key demographic ratings, and a small decline in key demographic ratings.

NXT drew 703,000 viewers and a 0.21 key demographic rating on USA Network. NXT’s key demographic ranking for that night was 7th place.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s declines this week was due to stiffer than usual sports competition that night and the large declines from their younger key demographic viewership, older make key demographic viewership, and older female key demographic viewership groups, which were down 20.3%, 25%, and 16.9% respectively compared to last week’s show.

In terms of notable head-to-head competition, the NBA game of San Antonio Spurs vs. Oklahoma City Thunder drew 1,802,000 viewers on TNT, the College Basketball game of Duke vs. Michigan State drew 1,514,000 viewers on ESPN, the College Basketball game of Kentucky vs. Kansas drew 1,534,000 viewers on ESPN, and Wipeout drew 340,000 viewers on TBS.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 272,000 viewers. NXT’s Males 18-34 was 70,000 viewers (down 16.7%), Females 18-34 was 52,000 viewers (down 24.6%), Males 35-49 was 96,000 viewers (down 25%), and Females 35-49 was 54,000 viewers (down 16.9%). Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership split was 166,000 male viewers and 106,000 female viewers for a split of 60.7% in favor of males.

NXT’s peak overall viewership reportedly was at 785,000 viewers for the quarter hour featuring the NXT Tag Team Championship match of Tony D’Angelo & Stacks vs. Chase U (c) while the peak key demographic viewership was at 301,000 viewers for the same quarter hour. Meltzer reported that NXT’s overrun drew 695,000 overall viewers and 262,000 key demographic viewers for the latter half of the Baron Corbin vs. Wes Lee match & post-match brawl with Ilja Dragunov.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 6% in overall viewership and up 24.2% in key demographic viewership. Meltzer reported that NXT’s 18-34 viewership was up 45.2% compared to the same week last year.

WWE News & Notes

WWE announced that they are currently holding an online fan poll to officially determine which team will get the advantage for the Women’s WarGames match at Survivor Series 2023 on November 25th in Chicago, Illinois.

Friday’s SmackDown show featured WWE announcing that next week’s show will be airing on FS1 instead of FOX. The reason why next week’s show will be airing on FS1 is due to FOX commitments with college football on the network.

Friday’s SmackDown show also featured NXT talent Axiom making his official main roster debut. Axiom competed against Dragon Lee in a singles match, which was won by Lee.

As noted before, WWE held a set of two television tapings for NXT this past Tuesday at their Performance Center. The first taping was for this past Tuesday’s live show while the second taping was for next week’s show on November 21st. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources confirmed that the reason why WWE held two tapings that night was due to WWE officials allowing people working in their NXT brand to go home early and spend time with their families for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

As noted before, indie talent Jay Malachi was recently offered a contract by WWE. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that Malachi was seen at WWE’s Performance Center this past Tuesday. Johnson reported that Malachi is currently believed to have signed a NXT developmental contract with the company.

NXT developmental talent Anna Keefer recently revealed on Twitter that she will now be known under the ring name of Adrianna Rizzo going forward in WWE.

This past Wednesday’s episode of Celebrity Jeopardy on ABC featured Becky Lynch as one of the contestants. CBS Sports reported that Lynch managed to become the first person in Jeorpordy history to fail to give at least one correct answer out of 60 questions given prior to the Final Jeopardy round. Lynch went 0 for 5 and had a negative monetary amount but was allowed to compete in the final round and managed to give a correct answer.

As noted before, WWE officials currently have plans for Drew McIntyre to be included in Judgement Day’s team for the Men’s WarGames match at next Saturday’s Survivor Series 2023 event in Chicago, Illinois. McIntyre officially turned heel and helped Judgement Day retain their Undisputed Tag Team Championship at this past Monday’s RAW show in Washington, DC. Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that WWE officials are currently planning to officially reveal the currently unannounced fifth member for Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Jey Uso, & Sami Zayn’s team prior to the event itself.

In a recent interview with the WWE The Bump show, Gunther gave his thoughts on why he feels that WWE Hall of Famer The Ultimate Warrior was only a showman and not an athlete nor a professional wrestler. Gunther stated “Those are the real dark ages. He’s a showman. He’s not an athlete, not a professional wrestler, he’s a showman. Now, everybody knows why I have to be the one to keep this title for the longest time in history to wash its reputation clean and set it to a new standard.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

WWE announced one new match for the card of their November 24th SmackDown show on FS1: