WWE: [Spoiler] First-Ever WWE Speed Women’s Champion Crowned, More on NXT Oct. 1, 2024 Premiere Show on The CW Viewership, More News

Oct 5, 2024

[Spoiler] First-Ever WWE Speed Women’s Champion Crowned at Friday’s WWE SmackDown & Speed Tapings

WWE held two new matches for their WWE Speed brand following their WWE SmackDown show on Friday at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

The first match was Candice LeRae defeating Kairi Sane in a Semifinal Round match for WWE’ inaugural WWE Speed Women’s Championship tournament.

The second match was Candice LeRae defeating IYO SKY in the Finals of WWE’s inaugural WWE Speed Women’s Championship tournament.

candice lerae has finally defeated iyo sky for the first time and is our first ever women’s speed champion!! pic.twitter.com/rcnDUP9C8q
— sammy (@iyosthelimit) October 5, 2024

In regards to the airing of these matches, WWE recently announced on Twitter that the LeRae vs. Sane match will air on Twitter on Saturday.

More on NXT Oct. 1, 2024 Viewership

The October 1st episode of WWE NXT saw NXT gain a very large increase in overall viewership and a large gain in key demographic ratings. This week’s show was notable for being NXT’s premiere show on The CW.

NXT drew 895,000 viewers and a 0.26 key demographic rating on The CW.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s increases this week was due to a combination of the show being NXT’s debut on The CW, the boost provided by The CW being a network station, and the very large increase from their overall viewership, which was up 40.5% compared to last week’s show. Meltzer reported that the bulk of NXT’s gains came from their older key demographic viewership group, which its percentage was not given, while their younger key demographic viewership group was only up 7.1% compared to last week’s show. Meltzer also reported that NXT’s overall viewership was the third highest for a show and their key demographic was the highest for a show on The CW in 2024 so far.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the 2024 Vice Presidential Debate drew 6,352,000 viewers on ABC, 9,571,000 viewers on CBS, 5,674,000 viewers on NBC, 2,447,000 viewers on FOX, 7,931,000 viewers on FOX News, 3,367,000 viewers on CNN, and 4,880,000 viewers on MSNBC, the 2024 MLB Playoffs Game 1 of Atlanta Braves vs. San Diego Padres drew 2,929,000 viewers on ESPN, the 2024 WNBA Playoffs Game 2 of Las Vegas Aces vs. New York Liberty drew 969,000 viewers on ESPN2, Deadliest Catch drew 904,000 viewers on Discovery Channel, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta drew 373,000 viewers on MTV, Chopped drew 462,000 viewers on Food Network, Real Housewives of New York City drew 312,000 viewers on BRAVO, and My Big Fat Fabulous Life drew 257,000 viewers on TLC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 354,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 65.4% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 4.4% in overall viewership and up 22.5% in key demographic viewership. Meltzer reported that NXT’s 18-34 key demographic viewership was equal compared to the same week last year.

WWE NXT quarter hour viewership breakdowns were:

1Q – 880,000 overall viewers and 320,000 key demo viewers (Shawn Michaels & Paul “Triple H” Levesque promo segment and the start of the NXT Women’s Championship match of Giulia vs. Roxanne Perez (c))
2Q – 965,000 overall viewers and 357,000 key demo viewers (Bulk of the NXT Women’s Championship match & post-match angle with Cora Jade and the Nathan Frazer & Axiom video promo segment)
3Q – 959,000 overall viewers and 369,000 key demo viewers (Ava, CM Punk, & Lexis King backstage segment, the Wes Lee & Zachary Wentz video segment, the Lola Vice, Jaida Parker, & Kelani Jordan backstage segment, and the start of the Street Fight match of Lee vs. Wentz)
4Q – 950,000 overall viewers and 379,000 key demo viewers (Bulk of the Street Fight match and The Miz backstage segment)
5Q – 939,000 overall viewers and 398,000 key demo viewers (The Miz, Oba Femi, & Tony D’Angelo sit-down promo segment and the Cora Jade & Roxanne Perez backstage promo segment)
6Q – 831,000 overall viewers and 351,000 key demo viewers (Lola Vice & Jaida Parker vs. Fatal Influence tag team match & post-match promo by Fatal Influence & Kelani Jordan & brawl with Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill)
7Q – 791,000 overall viewers and 323,000 key demo viewers (Je’Von Evans video promo segment, the “All Ego” Ethan Page, Trick Williams, & CM Punk video segment, the DELTA debut video segment, and the start of the NXT Championship Special Guest Referee match of Williams vs. Page (c))
8Q – 843,000 overall viewers and 337,000 key demo viewers (Bulk of the NXT Championship Special Guest Referee match)

WWE News & Notes

WWE reportedly has sold and distributed around 14,247 tickets for their Bad Blood 2024 event on Saturday at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia as of Friday evening, according to WrestleTix.

WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque recently released the opening video for this Saturday’s WWE Bad Blood 2024 event.

As noted before, several WWE Legends are currently scheduled to be in attendance at WWE’s Bad Blood 2024 event in Atlanta. WWE Hall of Famer Arn Anderson recently announced on Twitter that himself and fellow WWE Hall of Famer Tully Blanchard will also be in attendance at WWE’s Bad Blood 2024 event.

Deadline reported that Paramount Pictures recently shuffled around the theatrical release date for a few of their upcoming films. Among those given a new release date included the Naked Gun reboot featuring Cody Rhodes among its cast. This upcoming film had been originally scheduled to be released on July 18, 2025 but was moved to a new date of August 1, 2025.

Oba Femi recently surpassed the milestone of 270 days for his current NXT North American Championship reign as of Friday and broke the all-time record for longest ever North American title reign in NXT history. The previous record was 269 days held by Wes Lee from October 22, 2022 to July 18, 2023.

WWE and 2K Games recently announced that the “Fiend” Bray Wyatt DLC pack for their WWE 2K24 video game will be released on October 16th.

WWE recently released four new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a “Forgotten Hell in a Cell Matches: From the WWE Vault.” The second new video was a singles match of Goldberg vs. Chris Jericho from WWE Bad Blood 2003. The third new video was a “WWE Bad Blood footage we found in the WWE Vault.” The fourth new video was a “Carlito presents brawl with Sabu in Puerto Rico: From the WWE Vault.”

Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert reported that Peacock recently removed archived episodes of WWE NXT from their service following NXT’s premiere show on The CW this past Tuesday.

In a recent interview with Billboard, Cody Rhodes gave his thoughts about the possibility of the band for the H.B.C.U. (Historically Black College and University) University of Arkansas Pine Bluff will perform his “Kingdom” entrance theme song live at the event. Rhodes stated “You mentioned the band (University of Arkansas Pine Bluff). They played that on primetime when they played Arkansas, and it’s quite possible you might see them playing it live in the State Farm Arena at Bad Blood. That was incredibly touching. In terms of your question, I’m always so careful about how I answer because the truth is, I don’t know (Rhodes said when asked about his connection to the Black wrestling fan base). I just want to do all I can to keep it going. That’s such an honor.I know some of the memes are meant to be funny and I’ve seen the name and all that stuff, but that was my dad’s biggest fan base. I could see things like the Southern Baptist church and things that connected the tissue. With me, I’m not sure so much, but I don’t wanna do anything to disrespect it or lose it, because not only do they do that fun stuff online, the community has also been really active in the arenas and as part of the journey. I don’t get to WrestleMania 40 without that group of fans. I’m touched just hearing it. I try to do everything that I can not to screw it up.“

In a recent interview with the HawkCast podcast, Big E gave his thoughts about his past WWE Championship victory and reign and people telling him that he needed to change and cut promos a different way than he usually did as champion and him saying no to that feedback because he fought hard to be himself. Big E stated “I always wanted to be a one of one and that no one could put all the elements of what I do together. That was always my goal at least, whether I succeeded or failed. I just wanted to carve my own lane and that’s what I’m proud of, you know, because so often, especially when I won the WWE Championship and I was on my singles run, I got a lot of feedback like, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t look like that, you can’t cut promos like this. You’re gonna really have to change.’ But no. I fought to be myself and that to me as a performer was something that’s vitally important for me is to be able to trust my own instincts, to go out there and sink or swim on my own. I know I’m not always going to get it right. But just this belief that I wanna do things my way, because I can sleep at night. If I fail, if I sink doing it my way, I’m okay with that. But if I sink doing it your way, that, I’m not cool with so…” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)