WWE: Rey Fenix WWE Debut Plans Update, Triple H Announces WWE Returning to Australia This Fall, More on NXT March 4, 2025 Viewership, More News

Mar 8, 2025

Rey Fenix Expected to Join WWE Update – Fenix’s WWE Debut Reportedly Planned for After End of European Tour

As noted before, Rey Fenix was released from AEW earlier this week and is currently a free agent. Fenix is currently expected to be joining WWE soon.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that the current belief within WWE is that Fenix will be making his official debut for the company after their upcoming European tour which ends on March 31st.

Next Australian Event Set for Fall 2025 in Perth

As noted before, TKO Group announced this past February that WWE and UFC will be holding several events in Australia in 2025 and 2026. WWE will be holding their upcoming events in the country later this year.

Friday’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference 2025 event in Boston, Massachusetts featured WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Levesque announcing that WWE will be returning to Perth, Australia this fall for their next shows in the country.

“Right now, we’re going three weeks back to back of live events, non-televised, but also each week, Raw and SmackDown coming from international markets, and markets that we wouldn’t necessarily go to. Barcelona, Germany, places that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to go to with TV. We have Perth coming up in the fall, we have France coming up, Clash in Paris. The ability for us to hit the markets that are most important for Netflix but also most important for us, and to really service and become a global brand in a bigger way than we ever have before.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

More on NXT March 4, 2025 Viewership

The March 4th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a very large decline in overall viewership and a small decline in key demographic ratings. This week’s show was notable for being preempted on The CW Network’s New York and Chicago markets due to the network’s commitments with the 2025 President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address that night.

NXT drew 698,000 viewers and a 0.15 key demographic rating on The CW.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s declines this week was due to very stiff news competition from the 2025 State of the Union Address and the show being preempted on two of The CW’s largest television markets for news coverage of it. Another reason reportedly was due to several other markets also had cut away from NXT’s show and joined in on the coverage of the State of the Union Address. Another reason reportedly was due to NXT’s older key demographic viewership group being down 21.3% compared to last week’s show. Meltzer reported that it is currently not known if NXT’s ratings also included numbers from the State of the Union Address for their New York and Chicago markets and any other markets that cut into NXT’s show to air it.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the 2025 President Joint Address to Congress drew 6,332,000 viewers on ABC, 4,009,000 viewers on CBS, 3,909,000 viewers on NBC, 2,652,000 viewers on FOX, 10,703,00 viewers on Fox News, 1,929,000 viewers on CNN, 1,924,000 viewers on MSNBC, and 1,951,000 viewers on Newsmax, the NBA game of Golden State Warriors vs. New York Knicks drew 1,072,000 viewers on TNT, the College basketball game of Auburn vs. Texas A&M drew 564,000 viewers on ESPN, the College basketball game of LSU vs. Kentucky drew 506,000 viewers on ESPN2, the TGL Golf game of Jupiter Links Golf Club vs. Atlanta Drive GC drew 500,000 viewers on ESPN, Curse of Oak Island drew 1,451,000 viewers on History Channel, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta drew 359,000 viewers on MTV, 7 Little Johnstons drew 449,000 viewers on TLC, Moonshiners drew 731,000 viewers on Discovery Channel, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills drew 803,000 viewers on BRAVO.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 200,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 58.1% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 6.7% in overall viewership and but down 5.2% in key demographic viewership.

WWE News & Notes

As noted before, Cody Rhodes suffered a black eye and ruptured eardrum injury due to a hard slap spot by Travis Scott during John Cena’s heel turn and attack on Rhodes segment at last Saturday’s WWE Elimination Chamber 2025 event. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that Scott got heat backstage over the incident with people feeling that Scott should not have been out there nor put in that position in the first place. Meltzer reported that one story within WWE was that Scott was told to make the slap look good but he ended up making it look too good in regards to legit slapping Rhodes too hard.

WWE recently released a new video focusing on special cameras inside the pods during the Men’s and Women’s Elimination Chamber matches capturing the real-time reactions from the competitors to the action as it happened during both matches.

WWE also recently revealed the next match in their on-going countdown of their Top 50 matches in WrestleMania history. The 41st spot was the Boneyard match of The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles from WrestleMania 36.

WWE also recently released one new video for their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a “WCW YouTube Launch Party – Classic PPVs, Nitro, Thunder and MORE.”

WWE also recently released one new video to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a WWE Women’s Championship Triple Threat match of Trish Stratus vs. Jazz vs. Victoria (c) from WWE WrestleMania XIX.

WWE also recently released one new video to their NXT Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was the full November 20, 2013 episode of WWE NXT.

In a recent interview with The Jobber Tear’s Network, WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus gave her thoughts about her being grateful over getting to compete at WWE’s Elimination Chamber 2025 event in her hometown of Toronto. Stratus stated “Great (Stratus responded when asked how she’s feeling physically after Elimination Chamber). What an opportunity. I went back, I wrestled with Charlotte (Flair), I’ve wrestled with Becky Lynch. To go back and now touch the next generations, I’m so grateful. I mean, who could have thought we could have done something like that? And then, I got to wrestle for the first time live in front of my children. That was so special. We (myself & Lita) wrestled so long ago and my children were not even a thought in my brain. So to be able to go back and have that moment with them in my hometown was so special.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)

In a recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Matt Hardy gave his thoughts about the Hardys current run in WWE’s NXT brand. Hardy stated “It’s been incredible. I can’t really put it over enough, they’ve been so great to us. The way they have treated us as such legends and just like they act so honored, ‘Thank you so much for doing this, thank you for coming out and being a part of this.’ We came out last night and the crowd was so loud. Right before we went out, Shawn came up and said, ‘Hey, I know these people are going to be real hyped to see you, but if you can, we’d like to keep the show on time. Just try and you know, kind of get it going.’ That was great, Shawn’s been incredible. Matt Bloom has been great, everybody has been. The whole experience has been so so so so so fun. It is. I mean, it’s just crazy how much universal love there has been in the building the last couple weeks. Last Tuesday, it was a much bigger venue and just the universal love there was incredible. We could have sat there and milked that promo over, the crowd, they were wanting to chant Hardy or like welcome home, welcome back, thank you Hardy. At one point, they were saying Brother Nero but we just tried to go ahead and get through our promos so we didn’t go heavy in our whole segment. It was just so flattering, so humbling. The legitimate chant and the love and the passion those people showed us when they were saying welcome back home felt really special. I think Jeff and I have come to realization, at the end of the day, the WWE is our home and that is where we want to finish things when it’s all said and done.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)