Weekend Roundup: Roman Reigns WWE Return Plans, WWE’s Plans for Strong Presence in Mexico Rachael Ellering Reportedly Signs with AEW/ROH, Bandido Wrist Injury Update, NJPW, Mina Skirakawa, Indies

Indie / Misc

Steve C.

Jul 14, 2024

WWE

Roman Reigns has been absent from WWE since this past April’s WrestleMania 40 event due to him currently being on a break from WWE and wrestling. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that Reigns is currently expected to make his return to WWE television soon and in time for this August’s SummerSlam 2024 event. Johnson reported that WWE’s current plans is for Reigns to return in around two to three weeks prior to SummerSlam 2024 instead of at the event itself.
WWE held one match for their WWE Speed taping prior to the start of this past Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Worcester, Massachusetts. This was Ilja Dragunov vs. Carmelo Hayes ending in a time limit draw in a Semifinal round match for WWE’s newest #1 Contender’s tournament for the WWE Speed Championship.
WWE recently announced two new matches for the card of this Tuesday’s NXT show. The first new match announced was a Six-Person Mixed Tag Team match of The O.C. (Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, & Michin) will face OTM (Bronco Nima, Lucien Price, & Jaida Parker). The second new match announced was a singles match of Tatum Paxley vs. Izzi Dame.
WWE also recently announced that this Monday’s WWE RAW show in Dayton, Ohio will open with a Rhea Ripley promo segment.
WWE also recently announced one new match for the card of this Monday’s WWE RAW show in Dayton. This new match announced was an International Championship match of Ilja Dragunov vs. Sami Zayn (c).
As noted before, former CMLL talent Stephanie Vaquer made her official in-ring debut for WWE at Saturday’s house show event in Mexico City, Mexico. Following the match, WWE released a backstage video on Instagram featuring Vaquer stating “NXT, see you soon.“
In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Booker T gave his thoughts about the future of his wrestling career and if he has any retirement plans. Booker T stated “Well, I’m never gonna retire. I’m definitely gonna get back in the ring at some point in time to do something. But it’s gonna be here, in Reality of Wrestling, or in Saudi [laughs].” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
Activision recently announced that they have collaborated with WWE for the fifth season of their Call of Duty game starting on July 24th.
WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque recently announced on Twitter that WWE’s WWE Speed series is currently averaging around 1.5 million views per episode since the series’ debut.
WWE recently released a new video on their WWE Vault YouTube channel featuring Sami Zayn picking a match that was revealed to be the Samurai del Sol vs. El Generico match from a past EVOLVE event.
In a recent interview with The Angle podcast, TNA Wrestling and indies talent AJ Francis, former Top Dolla in WWE, gave his thoughts about if WWE’s door is always open for him to make another potential return to the company. Francis stated “Yeah, I mean I talked to Paul Heyman and Triple H last week. I still am in communication with everybody there. The thing is, I’m just doing my own thing right now. Before, if you thought that I was just the heavy big man in a crew and just stand there and look big and be that person in Hit Row, if you thought that, you were wrong then. But if you pay attention right now, you’ll see exactly how wrong you are. The best thing that happened to me in TNA is Tommy Dreamer will make sure I get a mic every single episode. I talk every single episode. I have major talking segments in huge spots, and I kill them because there’s no one that talks better than me. There never has been. The fact is, I need a mic. If you give me a mic, I’ll show you that I’m better than everybody else you got. If anyone thinks I’m not, stand six feet away from me with a microphone in your hands, and let’s just see what happens.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with SOUNDSPHERE Magazine, artist Kyle Scarborough gave his thoughts about working with the late Bray Wyatt for the creation of Wyatt’s The Fiend character in WWE and Wyatt not being fond of the idea of having the characters of his Firefly Fun House come to life. Scarborough stated “Speaking to that direct relationship with him (Windham Rotunda) because the corporate, creative side would come in and say, we’re gonna do X, Y and Z and he would go, oh, he hated it and he would say no so he would task me to design something else. He always wanted to have a counteroffer. If they came at him sideways with stuff, he would say, ‘No, I don’t like that. I wanna do this.’ He was very upset, at the time, about the idea of bringing the Fun House to life. I believe the company or somebody wanted to have an entire stable of people dressed up as the puppets and he was not into it. So, the counter that he made and I spoke to this already but, that’s why that Huskus, almost Leatherface with the big, giant metal spikes piece made it out there. That was something that he requested because his counteroffer was, ‘Well, I will play the characters.’ You keep it in that headspace of the Fun House. It’s not a real physical place and if I have to come out or the characters come out, I will play it because it’s all in my head. So I will be these characters come to life. That helps keep it in the mythos that I’ve created. Not, I’ve got five friends with me. That doesn’t make any sense. They wouldn’t be there physically. So, that’s what it was a few years ago.“
Scarborough continued stating “If you’re asking what do I think about it (Wyatt Sick6)? I think that’s just been sort of a pickle but for starters, I was very happy that they did something to benefit his wife and kids like with merchandise and whatnot… And it’s been weird ever since I started working with Malakai (Black) and AEW and I think there was some bitter — I don’t care. I’m more than happy to get into my suspicions on that but, I had not heard anything from the company whatsoever so, I had reached out and just said, ‘I would really like to do something for no money, no recognition, don’t have to put my name on anything, I’m not looking for any of that.’ I was like, ‘I just wanted to do something that you could hopefully sell, benefit his kids. You want prints? You want shirt designs?’ I don’t know. I wanted to do something, I wanted to give back, and just nothing was responded to. I spoke with Rob (Fee), a little bit but, that’s not his department of things so, I don’t really know what the creative side was of any of that. I wished I could have helped him on that but, so anyway, when they started doing the characters and stuff and they finally debuted it and I already kind of said, you get burdened by information a little bit. I would love to know what it would be like to watch that as a fan because I love the theatrics and some people hate it. ‘It’s cheesy.’ I don’t care… As a fan, I would love to know how I would have reacted to seeing The Wyatt Sick6 stuff and visually, what they did, the production of it, I got to catch, like I said, the video of they destroyed the whole backstage, whatnot. Yeah, I mean, I think they’re doing the best they can with it. I think it has a certain, you know, that analog kind of horror quality to it a little bit, which I am kind of sucker for. I’m a huge fan of that stuff too. So yeah, I think it’s fairly cool overall. I don’t know if I’m missing anything. When it comes to the masks, it comes to the characters in masks and like I said, you can get mad at me for saying it, but I know that he didn’t like it. So, it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. I’m not saying that… I believe, because I think Rob is really smart and I’m sure that the last thing anybody’s gonna wanna do is disrespect his legacy and I hope that first and foremost. As long as it’s not just one of those, let’s just pump out this stuff and is this really helping people? And from a wrestling standpoint, from characters because as pro wrestler, if your character kind of gets changed up a lot and they kind of write you into a weird spot, no matter how talented you are, it’s hard to come back from that. So you got all these characters in that and speaking specifically to Dexter Lumis who’s (a) super kind guy, like him a lot, always liked the character. Joe (Gacy), I’m not super familiar with the NXT stuff but now that you’re sort of saddled with this, you are now one of those puppets, it’s like where’s your dimensions as a character? So I think about that. I hope that it all works out for everyone involved. I just hope that it does accelerate people’s careers and whatnot. I’m sure people are probably really enjoying doing it because they really enjoyed Windham and whatnot and I hope as fans, everyone gets to keep enjoying it. For him, his legacy, I want it to work because for as amazing as all of his character stuff was, man, there’s a history of leave it alone. I understand you gotta wrangle in some of the ideas but, I feel like they could have done more if Windham would have a little bit less reins on him to — I liked it. Maybe it wasn’t for television, maybe it’s not for pro wrestling but, if anything, that guy should have written screenplays or movies or something.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
In a recent interview with the Gorilla Position podcast, Gunther gave his thoughts about Ludwig Kaiser’s singles work of late in WWE. Gunther stated “Oh, very. And to me it’s no surprise because I always saw that in him. I think what it took was that kind of like he saw that in himself a little bit. I think that was the biggest step for him. And now he has the chance to do his own thing and go out there and make a name for himself just on his own. And I’m very pleased to be able to witness that first-hand. I think he’s just getting started. The next years are going to be very exciting when it comes to the things he’s going to do.” Gunther also gave his thoughts about the status of his Imperium group in WWE. Gunther stated “I mean, it’s a duo right now. But I think it’s important now that he does things on his own. We’ll always have that bond and always stick together when it’s necessary. That won’t change, but that also doesn’t mean we always have to be seen together every minute on television. I think everybody is aware that there’s a connection. And there’s no reason to assume that it’s not there anymore. But I’ve always been big about handling my matches myself without wanting or needing help. He’s going to do the same now, and I think that’s a very good experience to make and it’s a very good path to follow. If things get dangerous or difficult for me or for him, we always know we can rely on each other.” (Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com)
WWE’s Money in the Bank 2024 event last week in Toronto, Ontario, Canada reportedly generated around 6,000 cable television pay-per-view buys, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that Money in the Bank 2024’s PPV buys are currently up 50.4% compared to this past June’s Clash at the Castle 2024 event and up 23.4% compared to this past May’s King & Queen of the Ring 2024 event based on the same number of days after the event.
As noted before, WWE announced during the pre-show for their Money in the Bank 2024 event that WWE and WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque worked with Canadian authorities for Jacob Fatu to be legally allowed in the country for their event that night. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that WWE officials had used a high powered immigration law firm to get Fatu cleared to enter Canada. Fatu has been banned from entering Canada due to him having a criminal record for armed robbery dating back to when he was 18 years old.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that WWE officials are very much interested in having a stronger presence in Mexico. Meltzer reported that one plan currently being considered by WWE officials is to work with UFC to use their Performance Institute in Mexico City to develop Mexican wrestlers for the company. Meltzer reported that the idea would be to target Mexican wrestlers who likely would normally gravitate towards Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre for their careers in Mexico. The idea also being to target wrestlers who would be interested in working for WWE and to get them in their system early instead of those wrestlers first spending years in CMLL and the Mexican wrestling scene before going to WWE.
WWE reportedly drew an attendance of 16,932 (15,000 paid) for their July 5th SmackDown show in Toronto, 18,955 for their July 6th Money In The Bank 2024 event in Toronto, 9,628 for their July 7th NXT Heatwave 2024 event in Toronto, Canada, and 8,026 for their July 8th RAW show in Ottawa, Canada, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
In a recent interview with the 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff podcast, former WWE President Stu Snyder gave his thoughts about WWE’s agreement to purchase WCW and how Viacom blocked the original sale deal. Snyder stated “After my phone call where I said, ‘Hey, how are you doing? If you want to do something, ever, we might be interested. We’re an obvious buyer, if you’re interested. Somewhere after that period is when Turner and WWF started having a conversation about acquiring WCW. I can’t tell you a date or time period, was it a month or two months, I don’t recall that. We actually had a deal done, closed, we agreed on a price. Brad (Siegel) was only one player of the Turner team involved in that negotiation. We were paying….I’ll put it this way, we were paying a lot of money. Our offer was for a lot of money for WCW the first go round. We had our exclusive deal with Viacom. The deal with us was, we were taking the shows off of Turner. We were going to go with Viacom because we couldn’t have the shows on Turner. Vince’s perspective — one of the things we chatted about was, ‘Vince, we had to get Viacom on board with airing more wrestling. They’re not just going to go here is two more hours.’ We already had two hours. Vince, in his magnanimous way, said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it happen.’ Okay, got it. Vince had a very good relationship at Viacom. We negotiated a deal. I flew down to Turnr broadcasting, on the jet, we had a deal. We then go to Viacom and say, ‘We have a deal to buy WCW. We need two more hours on the Viacom networks.’ Viacom said no. All I remember about Yom Kippur 2000 is that I worked all day on the deal. We had done this deal, brought it Viacom, they said no, we then had to pick up the phone and call Turner, the lawyers, and go, ‘We can’t move forward.’” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

AEW & ROH

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that Rachael Ellering recently signed an official contract with AEW and Ring of Honor. It was reported that Ellering had been signed to AEW for “quite some time” despite her not receiving the #AllElite graphic treatment typically given for regular AEW talent contract signings. It was also reported that details regarding Ellering’s contract is currently not known.
Following England’s loss to Spain in the Finals of today’s UEFA Euro 2024 tournament in Berlin, Germany, MJF used the occasion on Twitter to mock Will Ospreay. MJF stated when Spain scored to go up 1 to 0 “Time and time again, the British prove they can’t win when put under pressure. Whether it’s the Euro Cup. Or this Wednesday. Englishmen just aren’t equipped to be athletes. #EURO2024” In a follow-up tweet when Spain scored again to make it 2 to 1, MJF stated “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA“
Saturday’s Atlanta Classic Physique bodybuilding event in Atlanta, Georgia featured QT Marshall taking first place in the novice division in the classic physique category. Marshall reflected on Twitter about his victory stating “A year ago I decided to change my lifestyle. Today, I competed in my first (& most likely only) classic physique event today with a first place victory. 🏅 Life can be really fun if you let it…“
This past Friday’s musical concert for Brody King’s God’s Hate hardcore rock band in Los Angeles, California featured King and Darby Allin being involved in an angle at the show. During the performance, Allin ran onto the stage attempting to attack King only to get chucked off the stage and into the crowd by King in response.
AEW CEO Tony Khan recently stated on Twitter that he currently feels that 2024 will end up being AEW’s best year yet. Khan stated “I’m so excited for the rest of 2024 @AEW! I think that this will be the best year in AEW yet!“
Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that AEW will be making their return to Kentucky for a new AEW Dynamite show on September 18th at the Krupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
In a recent episode of the What Happened When with Tony Schiavone podcast, co-host Tony Schiavone gave his thoughts about the importance of a company building its own stars and his current belief that AEW was doing that. Schiavone stated “It’s important for a promotion to make its own stars, and I think AEW is. With MJF, like him or not, with the Young Bucks, with Hangman Adam Page, who to me is going to be a great freaking heel, holy shit, and with Will Ospreay, who obviously became a star with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, but I think it’s an exciting time because we’ve got stars. Swerve Strickland is another one. We’ve got stars that we have made in AEW, and I think that is the key to any good company. Sure, Bryan Danielson gets the big pops, and I get that, and deservedly so. Claudio [Castagnoli], Jon Moxley, those are guys who were established stars and made stars by WWE. But here they are in AEW, and I think it’s a great combination.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
The Athletic recently reported that the NBA is currently expected to officially announce their new media rights deals with ESPN & ABC, NBC, and Amazon prior to the start of this year’s Olympic Games on July 26th. Warner Bros Discovery is expected to lose out on their NBA television deal but are currently considering legal options that would allow them to match Amazon’s deal in order to keep the NBA on TNT. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that despite WBD is currently expected to lose their NBA television deal, the impact of its loss does not necessarily mean that WBD will become a lot more reliant towards AEW. Meltzer reported that the basis for this belief is due to WBD has recently signed five new major sports deals to replace it, which include 14 Mountain West college football games per season, College Football playoff games, Big East Conference men’s and women’s basketball, the French Open, and five NASCAR races per year. Meltzer reported that this will help fill the expected sports programming void from the NBA. Meltzer also reported that WBD is also currently expected to make a bid for the UFC once their current television deal with ESPN expires.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that this past May’s Double or Nothing 2024 event generated a final pay-per-view buys number of around 145,000. Meltzer reported that this number would be viewed as a major success for the event.
As noted before, Bandido has been out of action for AEW since June of 2023 due to a broken wrist injury. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that Bandido had underwent an exam a few weeks ago hopeful of being medically cleared from his injury but this ended up not being the case due to the results from his exam. Meltzer reported that Bandido is currently scheduled to undergo another exam at the end of this month. Meltzer also reported that even if Bandido were to be cleared, he likely would not be ready to return in time for AEW’s All In 2024 event this August and more likely would return afterwards for the next PPV cycle.
Bryan Danielson reportedly is currently set to join a very exclusive group of wrestlers baring him getting hurt prior to AEW’s All In 2024 event next month. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Danielson will become the fourth wrestler ever in wrestling history to have worked at Wembley Stadium, Madison Square Garden, the Tokyo Dome, and Arena Mexico in a wrestling career. Meltzer reported that the other three who have achieved this are Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, and John Tenta.
AEW reportedly drew an attendance of 2,497 for their July 6th AEW Collision show in Southaven, MS and 4,500 for their July 10th AEW Dynamite and Collision shows in Calgary, Canada, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the current median age of an AEW Dynamite viewer is 50 years old and an AEW Rampage viewer is 51 years old. Meltzer reported that both of these are considered on the low end when compared to most of television these days and only UFC and soccer generate younger median viewership ages out of all the major sports in the U.S. Meltzer also reported that AEW’s median age for their shows is on the same level as the NBA.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that AEW’s attendance average for Dynamite was 3,600 per show and for Collision was 3,100 per show for this year’s second quarter. Meltzer reported that Dynamite’s average was down compared to last year’s second quarter average of 5,100 per show.

TNA, NJPW, Indies, & Misc. Wrestling

TNA Wrestling reportedly recently reached sold out status for tickets for their Slammiversary 2024 event on July 20th at the Verdun Auditorium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, according to PWInsider.
Saturday’s Fantasticamania USA 2024 event for New Japan Pro Wrestling and CMLL in San Jose, California featured NJPW Strong Openweight Champion Gabe Kidd issuing a challenge to Lio Rush for his title at NJPW’s Capital Collision 2024 event on August 30th in Washington, D.C.
Saturday’s NJPW x CMLL Fantasicamania USA 2024 event also featured Mistico issuing a challenge to DOUKI for a title vs. title match involving DOUKI’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and Mistico’s MLW World Middleweight Championship being on the lines for an event in the future.
Saturday’s NJPW x CMLL Fantasicamania USA 2024 event also featured Willow Nightingale defeating Viva Van and Lluvia to become the new CMLL Women’s World Champion. In a post-match backstage press conference, Nightingale gave her thoughts about her title victory. Nightingale stated “The last time I wrestled in CMLL was actually also my first week in CMLL, but do you want to know what happened when I showed up? I freaking won. I beat the current CMLL Champion at that point, Stephanie Vaquer. Stephanie’s not here; the championship’s vacant. Who’s going to step up? No one else but Willow Nightingale, duh! My spirit was actually a little broken coming in here. AEW, my friend turned on me. I just lost my last match. I really needed a win, and today, I didn’t just get a win. I walked out an international champion.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
NJPW reportedly drew a paid attendance of 2,423 for their July 5th New Japan Soul 2024 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
NJPW reportedly has recently tightened their budget when it comes to talent spending and signings, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that his sources stated that NJPW officials have tightened their budget of late especially in regards to spending on foreign-based talent.
Stardom announced that they had pulled Mina Shirakawa from their event earlier today in Miabara, Japan due to Shirakawa currently dealing with poor health issues.
Stardom reportedly drew a paid attendance of 796 for their July 4th Nighter in Korakuen event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Indie wrestler Kevin Ku recently announced on Twitter that he suffered an injury earlier this month and will be out of action for a little while to recover. No other details were given by Ku regarding the nature nor severity of his injury.
As noted before, World of Sports Wrestling is current set to relaunch their company this September. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the upcoming WoS relaunch is not anything close to what the prior company was due to ITV having no involvement with this relaunch project nor is it being run by the same people who ran WoS several years ago. Meltzer reported that this relaunch is being led by indies promoter Steve Lynskey with the idea of using the familiar WoS branding for the launch of a new wrestling promotion.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that legendary wrestling venue Tampa Sportatorium is currently planned to be demolished and replace with 235 residential units starting next year. It was reported that the venue had not been in use since 2016 and had been laying dormant since then. The Sportatorium is notable in wrestling history for being the home venue of Eddie Graham’s Championship Wrestling from Florida.
As noted before, Marigold talent Giulia was medically cleared this past week from her right wrist fracture injury and competed at Saturday’s Summer Destiny 2024 event in Tokyo, Japan. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that while Marigold owner Rossy Ogawa was the one who made the announcement about Giulia being medically cleared, it was WWE who made the actual decision to allow Giulia to compete at Marigold’s event due to her been signed to a contract with them.
Dragon Gate reportedly drew a paid attendance of 1,374 for their July 5th Aggressive Gate 2024 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
TheCubsFan reported that Lucha Libre AAA will be holding a tour of Spain this November. It was reported that this will be a three-city tour from November 21-30 with an event on November 21st in Madrid, November 22nd in Bilbao, and November 30th in Barcelona. It was reported that the initial impression from fans in Spain is that they are happy that AAA will be running shows in their country but are puzzled why they decided to run shows in major venues since each of the three venues has a capacity of at least 10,000. It was reported that AAA does not have a television presence in Spain which makes their decision to hold a new tour there very ambitious and challenging to pull off successfully.

Wrestling TV Ratings for Week of July 5 to July 11, 2024

WWE Friday Night SmackDown – 2,256,000 viewers, 0.66 rating (prior week – 2,256,000 viewers, 0.66 rating)
WWE RAW – 1,750,000 viewers, 0.59 rating (prior week – 1,878,000 viewers, 0.62 rating)
WWE NXT – 656,000 viewers, 0.24 rating (prior week – 542,000 viewers, 0.15 rating)
AEW Rampage – 309,000 viewers, 0.10 rating (prior week – 303,000 viewers, 0.09 rating)
AEW Collision – 308,000 viewers, 0.08 rating (prior week – 422,000 viewers, 0.12 rating)
AEW Dynamite – 691,000 viewers, 0.23 rating (prior week – 688,000 viewers, 0.23 rating)
TNA Wrestling Impact! – N/A (prior week – N/A)
Various – Biography: WWE Legends (A&E) – N/A (prior week – 221,000 viewers, 0.03 rating)

Total wrestling television viewership for the week: 5,970,000 viewers, down 340,000 viewers from the prior week’s 6,310,000 viewers.

The viewership and ratings numbers for the July 4th and July 11th TNA Impact! shows are currently not known.

A&E did not air a new episode of Biography: WWE Legends on July 7th due to WWE holding their NXT Heatwave 2024 that night.