WWE: AJ Styles Mid Foot Ligament Injury Update, Jim Smallman Announces New Executive Role in WWE, More on NXT Jan. 7, 2025 Viewership, More News

AJ Styles Mid Foot Ligament Injury Update

As noted before, AJ Styles has been out of action for WWE since this past October due to a mid foot ligament sprain injury.

In response to a fan question, Styles provided an update on Friday on Twitter stating that his recovery from his injury has been more challenging than expected.

I'll be honest, this injury is challenging. https://t.co/uIwfcKWnMD

— AJ Styles (@AJStylesOrg) January 11, 2025

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Jim Smallman Announces Return to WWE & New Executive Role in Company

As noted before, former PROGRESS co-founder and WWE NXT creative writer Jim Smallman departed from WWE’s NXT brand this past December to spend more time with his family in the United Kingdom. Smallman later clarified that he was departing from WWE itself and would be returning to the company at some point in the future.

Smallman recently provided an update on his Linkedin page that he recently returned to WWE and in a new executive role as their new International Talent Scout.

“Delighted to share that I’m starting a new position as International Talent Scout at WWE! Have loved my six years of working for WWE so far, and it’s wonderful that I can now combine being back in the UK for my family with still contributing to the business that I adore so much.

With every WWE show playing on Netflix here in Europe, it’s a very exciting time for wrestling on this continent so I am very much looking forward to seeing what the future holds.”

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More on NXT Jan. 7, 2025 Viewership

The January 7th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT gain a very large increase in overall viewership and a large increase in key demographic ratings. This week’s episode was notable for being the NXT New Year’s Evil 2025 special and for also featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson making a guest appearance.

NXT drew 957,000 viewers and a 0.25 key demographic rating on The CW.

Detailed key demographic viewership breakdowns were not available in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

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 Rock’s hyped up advertised special appearance and the large increase from their Over 50 viewership group, which its percentage was not given, and overall key demographic viewership group, which was up 69.7% compared to last week’s show. Of NXT’s key demographic increase, their younger key demographic viewership group was up 10% compared to last week’s show. Meltzer reported that another potential big reason for NXT’s very large gains for this week’s show might have been due to the numbers might have included numbers from The CW’s KTLA station’s news coverage of the devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles market. NXT reportedly did not air in the market that night and the very larger than usual older viewership for the show might have indicated that had happened.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the NBA game of Los Angeles Lakers vs. Dallas Mavericks drew 1,026,000 viewers on TNT, the College basketball game of Pittsburgh vs. Duke drew 751,000 viewers on ESPN, the College basketball game of Tennessee vs. Florida drew 736,000 viewers on ESPN2, the College basketball game of Auburn vs. Texas drew 526,000 viewers on ESPN2, 7 Little Johnstons drew 641,000 viewers on TLC, Curse of Oak Island drew 1,717,000 viewers on History Channel, Moonshiners drew 707,000 viewers on Discovery Channel, Real Housewives of New York City drew 472,000 viewers on BRAVO, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills drew 911,000 viewers on BRAVO.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 341,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 72% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 32.5% in overall viewership and up 21.4% in key demographic viewership.

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WWE News & Notes

WWE officials reportedly are currently considering plans for WWE Hall of Famers Ric Flair and “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan to make potential appearances at their Royal Rumble 2025 event, according to PWInsider. Mike Johnson reported that those spoken to stated that should Flair and Duggan be brought for the show, their appearances would be limited to them making cameos and not actually wrestle.

As noted before, this past Tuesday’s WWE NXT New Year’s Evil 2025 show was preempted twice on The CW’s KTLA station for the Los Angeles market due to their on-going coverage of the devastating wildfires in the region. WWE recently announced that The CW will be airing a replay of the show on their network, including the Los Angeles market, on Saturday starting at 8PM EST. This replay will be going head-to-head against AEW’s Collision show that night.

Deadline reported that 63 Nexstar television stations for The CW were recently removed from cable provider Optimum due to an on-going carriage dispute between Optimum and The CW’s parent company Nexstar. Among the stations affected included WPIX in New York City, which is one of The CW’s biggest. It is currently not known how much this will affect WWE’s NXT ratings for their shows nor when this situation might be resolved.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Netflix recently released a new edited version of this past Monday’s WWE RAW premiere show on the service featuring all of the swearing done by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson being censored for the new VOD version in the United States. In a follow-up report, Johnson reported that Netflix also recently released a new edited version of the show for their international markets featuring both The Rock’s swearing being censored and all of the interview segments and other exclusive stuff that aired during commercials breaks for the show in the U.S. being removed.

As noted before, WWE officials had originally planned for this past Monday’s WWE RAW premiere show on Netflix to have a runtime of around 3 hours and 20-30 minutes. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the reason why this past Monday’s RAW show ended up being shorter in length than expected was due to WWE officials made a lot of changes to their plans for the show during the day leading to it. This reportedly led the show being trimmed down from its planned 3 hours and 20 minutes runtime to 3 hours and 3 minutes in the end.

WWE announced that they recently signed a new multi-year partnership deal with Cosm to present their PLEs in “shared reality.”

WWE recently released four new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a tag team match of Dustin & Dusty Rhodes vs. Virgil & “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase from WWE Royal Rumble 1991. The second new video was a “Story of Sycho Sid vs. Shawn Michaels at Royal Rumble 1997.” The third new video was a “Batista: The Animal Unleashed” full documentary. The fourth new video was a Buried Alive match of Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker from WWE Rock Bottom: In Your House 1998.