AEW: Ricochet on Decision to Leave WWE & Join AEW, Serena Deeb Return & New Matches Set for 8/31 Collision, Ratings Correction for 8/28 Dynamite & WBD’s Reaction

Aug 31, 2024

Ricochet Comments on His Decision to Leave WWE and Join AEW

As noted before, former WWE talent Ricochet made his official debut for AEW at this past Sunday’s All In 2024 event at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Following his surprise debut, AEW confirmed that they had signed Ricochet to an official contract with the company.

Sports Illustrated’s The Takedown held a recent interview with Ricochet. One of the topics discussed included Ricochet’s thoughts about his decision to leave WWE and join AEW.

“Honestly, the biggest reason is that I’ve been doing this for a long time, 21 years this year. And for me, the time when I was like, having the most fun in my career was when I was, like, traveling the world with those crazy lunatics in the back there. It’s literally the time when I was having the most fun. Despite what people may think, it’s not always been bad for Ricochet. I’ve had fun my entire career, no matter where I went. I’ve always had fun. That’s not going to change. But when I was having the most fun was when I was hanging out with these guys and traveling the world with these guys and having matches with these guys and creating the art that I really like to make for I feel like the Ricochet fans out there who’s been, you know, I guess just missing the opportunity to shine. But for me, it’s to have fun again and to create that art again.”

In response to a question about if it was a hard decision, Ricochet stated:

“It was definitely a big decision, but honestly, yes and no. Obviously, yes it was hard because it’s a place I’ve been for the last six years. of I’ve met. I got some really good connections, some friends, and some good memories there. So it was definitely hard. But at the same time, no, it wasn’t because I am a person who has always changed. I’ve always done stuff, so that’s something that I was looking forward to. And I just saw what AEW was doing. I saw the guys and girls over there and what they were doing, and it just seemed so fun. You want to be a part of it. Now that I’m able to and able to be a part of it and hopefully help move it forward into the next, generation is going to be awesome. So, as hard of a decision as it was, I knew it was the right decision.”

Serena Deeb Return & Four New Matches Announced for Saturday’s AEW Collision Show

AEW recently announced four new matches for the card of tonight’s AEW Collision show at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Among the new matches announced included Serena Deeb making her in-ring return in a Four-way match between her, Queen Aminata, Hikaru Shida, and Thunder Rosa.

Current card for 8/31 AEW Collision show:

Four-way match – Queen Aminata vs. Hikaru Shida vs. Serena Deeb vs. Thunder Rosa
The Conglomeration (Orange Cassidy & Kyle O’Reilly) & Hologram vs. Lee Moriarty, The Beast Mortos, & Johnny TV
Undisputed Kingdom (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) vs. FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood)
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kyle Fletcher

Ratings Correction for 8/28 AEW Dynamite Show & Warner Bros Discovery’s Reaction Over Neilsen Error

This past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show was recently discovered to have an error when it came to its ratings numbers from Neilsen Holdings.

This past Wednesday’s show was originally given the numbers of 691,000 overall viewers and a 0.22 key demographic rating.

Wrestlenomics’s Brandon Thurston reported that it was discovered that Nielsen had an error in their reporting and the real numbers for this past Wednesday’s show was 697,000 viewers and a 0.23 rating. Thurston reported that the error originated over Warner Bros Discovery had mistakenly designated that Dynamite had ended at 10:09 PM instead of its actual end time of 10:06 PM. Thurston reported that this led to viewership data for the first three minutes of Modern Family that followed Dynamite being incorrectly included in Dynamite’s numbers.

Fightful Select reported that their sources confirmed that the incorrect numbers were initially given for this past Wednesday’s Dynamite show.

It was reported that WBD had issued an internal memo within the company and AEW that stated that Neilson’s times can sometimes be off by a few minutes when it comes to sports and other television programs that have granted overruns.

It was reported that the overrun for this week’s Dynamite show ended up adding around 6,000 more viewers on average.

It was also reported that WBD was stated to not be as sensitive to Dynamite’s overall viewership number for this week’s show due to it had topped the night on cable in the key demographic for the second consecutive week.