WWE: WWE Reportedly Planning to Debut New Sponsored Ring Mats for RAWE Shows, More on NXT Dec. 31, 2024 Viewership, 1/3 SmackDown Show & More News & Notes

WWE Reportedly Planning to Debut New Sponsored Ring Mats for RAW Shows

WWE reportedly is currently planning to debut new sponsored ring mats for their WWE RAW shows, according to Fightful Select.

It was reported that prior to Friday’s WWE SmackDown show, WWE’s ring crew put a black ring mat that featured several sponsorship logos. These logos included a Fortnite logo in the spot where the Prime logo usually appears for major WWE shows. It was also reported that other logos shown were for Riyadh Season, Hulk Hogan’s Real American Beer, Cricket Wireless, Netflix, and Snickers spread out across the mat.

It was also reported that those spoken to stated that WWE officials have held recent talks regarding this new sponsored themed ring mat being used for their WWE RAW shows going forward.

Photos of this new potential ring mat were leaked online by those who had attended Friday’s show.

Ahead of SmackDown there was a black ring mat out in the ring which had the following logos on it, presumably will be used for RAW on Netflix:

• Fortnite (in the middle)
• Riyadh Season
• Hulk Hogan’s ‘Real American Beer’
• Cricket
• Netflix
• Snickers

(📸: @gbates5533) pic.twitter.com/0wioFhVbQw

— Wrestle Ops (@WrestleOps) January 4, 2025

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show featured WWE debuting a new all-blue ring canvas for SmackDown’s 3-hour premiere show.

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More on NXT Dec. 31, 2024 Viewership

The December 31st episode of WWE NXT saw NXT gain a slight increase in key demographic ratings but suffered a large decline in overall viewership. This week’s episode was notable for being a taped and not a live show.

NXT drew 626,000 viewers and a 0.15 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 declines this week was due to a combination of the New Year’s Eve holiday and the show being preempted on The CW’s Los Angeles market due to New Year’s Eve programming. Another reason reportedly was due to the large decline from their Over 50 demographic viewership group, which its percentage was not given. This reportedly offset the increase from their older key demographic viewership group, which was up 7.5% compared to last week’s show.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the 2024 New Year’s Rocking Eve drew 6,301,000 viewers on ABC, the 2024 New Year’s Eve Live drew 4,922,000 viewers on CBS, the Toast to 2024 drew 2,270,000 viewers on NBC, the 2024 Fiesta Bowl College football game of Penn State vs. Boise State drew 13,372,000 viewers on EPSN and 395,000 viewers on ESPN2, and the NBA game of Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Oklahoma City Thunder drew 170,000 viewers on NBA TV.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 201,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 69% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was down 18.5% in overall viewership and down 40% in key demographic viewership.

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WWE News & Notes

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Phoenix, Arizona featured Tiffany Stratton cashing in her Women’s Money in the Bank briefcase and defeating Nia Jax to become the new WWE Women’s Champion. Following her victory, the Minnesota Vikings celebrated on Twitter posting a photo of Stratton from their December 8th game against the Atlanta Falcons that she attended as a Vikings fan.

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Phoenix also featured the announcement of Paul Heyman will be awarding the ula fala to the winner of the Tribal Combat match between Solo Sikoa and Roman Reigns at next week’s WWE RAW premiere show on Netflix on January 6th in Inglewood, California.

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Phoenix also featured RAW brand talent Drew McIntyre making a surprise appearance. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that McIntyre’s appearance for SmackDown’s 3-hour premiere show was something that had been talked within WWE’s locker room over the past week. Many talents reportedly believed that McIntyre would be moving over to the SmackDown brand as part of WWE reshuffling their rosters for their new television deals. Johnson reported that it is currently not known if McIntyre’s move to the SmackDown brand is official for the reason for his appearance.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that WWE officials had made a lot of late revisions to their plans for the opening segment of Friday’s WWE SmackDown show. Johnson reported that WWE officials original plans were for the show to open with a Kevin Owens promo that would lead to Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes getting involved. Johnson also reported that there was a lot of back-and-forth on what would be the best for everyone creatively and decided on the version of the plans that played out on Friday’s show. WWE officials reportedly had plans at one point for Jey Uso to also be involved before going in a different direction instead.

WWE recently released a new commercial featuring Hulk Hogan promoting WWE’s next Saturday Night’s Main Event show on January 25th in San Antonio, Texas.

As noted before, Charlotte Flair has been out of action for WWE since December of 2023 due to a torn ACL, torn meniscus, and torn MCL injuries and underwent surgery this past January. Flair’s return from injury is currently expected to be “imminent.” Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp reported that several WWE talents spoken to stated that they currently expect Flair to return “sooner than later” to the company. Sapp reported that most of those spoken to stated that they currently expect Flair to be part of this year’s Royal Rumble event. Sapp also reported that potential plans for Flair for the Royal Rumble are currently not known.

WWE recently released one new video to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a “Behind the scenes of Raw’s iconic 1995 rooftop open.”

WWE reportedly currently generated around 20,800 cable television pay-per-view buys for this past November’s Survivor Series WarGames 2024 event based on updated late buys purchases, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that Survivor Series WarGames 2024’s buys generated the second highest PPV buys for a WWE PLE for 2024, only behind WrestleMania 41.