WWE: Kevin Owens Expiring WWE Contract Update & Interest from AEW, More on NXT Oct. 22, 2024 Viewership, More News

Oct 26, 2024

Kevin Owens Expiring WWE Contract Status Update – Owens Yet to Sign New Deal & Interest from AEW

As noted before, Kevin Owens contract with WWE is currently set to expire in early 2025. Owens was believed to have recently signed a new contract and it was being kept quiet by WWE officials and Owens but this was something that had yet to be confirmed.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that WWE officials had approached Owens about a month ago for talks for a potential new deal but the two sides have yet to agree on anything for a new deal.

In regards to outside interest, it was reported that those spoken to stated that AEW currently maintain a major interest in potentially signing Owens should he become available on the market. This interest reportedly has been something that AEW officials have had towards Owens for a long time.

More on NXT Oct. 22, 2024 Viewership

The October 22nd episode of WWE NXT saw NXT gain a large increase in overall viewership but suffered a slight decline in key demographic ratings.

NXT drew 702,000 viewers and a 0.16 key demographic rating on The CW.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s mixed results this week was due to the large gains from their Over 50 demographic viewership group, which its percentage was not given. This reportedly mostly offset the stiff sports competition from the NBA that night and the large decline from their younger key demographic viewership group, which was down 27.9% compared to last week’s show. Meltzer reported that NXT’s 18-34 rating of a 0.08 was the lowest for a NXT show in a long while. Meltzer reported that NXT’s overall key demographic rating was still the fourth highest for a show on The CW so far this year, only behind their other shows on the network.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the 2024 NBA Season Opener game of New York Knicks vs. Boston Celtics drew 3,000,000 viewers on TNT, the NHL game of Washington Capitals vs. Philadelphia Flyers drew 477,000 viewers on ESPN, the NHL game of Colorado Avalanche vs. Seattle Kraken drew 422,000 viewers on ESPN, Deadliest Catch drew 793,000 viewers on Discovery Channel, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta drew 394,000 viewers on MTV, Chopped drew 453,000 viewers on Food Network, Real Housewives of NYC drew 358,000 viewers on BRAVO, and 1000-LB Sisters drew 664,000 viewers on TLC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 216,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 68.8% in favor of males.

In terms of peak viewership, NXT’s peak overall viewership was at 794,000 viewers for the first quarter featuring the bulk of the Damage CTRL vs. Meta-Four tag team match. NXT’s peak key demographic viewership was 228,000 viewers for the second quarter hour featuring the end of the Damage CTRL vs. Meta-Four match & post-match brawl with Piper Niven & Chelsea Green. NXT’s eighth quarter drew 641,000 viewers and 218,000 key demographic viewers for the Giulia & Stephanie Vaquer vs. Fatal Influence tag team match & post-match stuff with Kelani Jordan, Cora Jade, & Roxanne Perez and the Zaria surprise debut segment.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was down 10.8% in overall viewership and down 21.7% in key demographic viewership. Meltzer reported that NXT’s 18-34 key demographic viewership was down 57.9% compared to the same week last year.

WWE News & Notes

As noted before, Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Brooklyn, New York featured the official announcement of LA Knight defending his United States Championship against Andrade and Carmelo Hayes at next month’s Crown Jewel 2024 event in Saudi Arabia. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that he had attended the show and the backstage segment involving SmackDown GM Nick Aldis and Knight that made the match official was something that was not shown to the live crowd.

WWE recently released two new videos on their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a “WrestleMania 14 Public Workout.” The second new video was a marathon of ” Hall of Famers battle at WrestleMania.”

WWE also recently released a new behind-the-scenes vlog featuring The Motor City Machine Guns official debut in the company at last week’s WWE SmackDown show in Columbia, South Carolina.

As noted before, Becky Lynch will be making an appearance for Vulture Festival at their Vulture Festival 2024 event on November 17th in Los Angeles, California. Lynch provided an update on Twitter stating that she will be talking about her autobiographical book, her wrestling career, and maybe also the future of her wrestling career. Lynch stated “I know it’s been a while but let’s catch up on Nov 17th at the @vulturefestival where I’ll be chatting about my book, my career, and, maybe what’s next.“

In a recent interview with The Schmo, Liv Morgan gave her thoughts about what is her favorite moment from her wrestling career so far. Morgan stated “I think my favorite moment to date is completing the Liv Morgan Revenge Tour. You know, Rhea Ripley, she tore my shoulder, my labrum, my bicep, my rotator cuff. I had to surgically repair it. Six months of my career gone. So beating her at SummerSlam and having the man that she loved, Daddy Dom, choose me right in front of her. I think that was a really fulfilling moment for me.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with The Schmo, Cody Rhodes gave his thoughts about WWE ring announcer Samantha Irvin’s departure earlier this week from WWE. Rhodes stated “What a wonderful…I feel like time will tell. In our business, five or ten years after somebody is gone, you hear ‘how wonderful. How amazing.’ She is top five, maybe top three. Samantha was just killing it. I know with her and WWE, they left on good terms. That’s amazing because the door is open in case she ever wants to come back. I’ve never watched WrestleMania 40 back, but I can hear it still in terms of her very emotional announcement of (me) winning the WWE Championship. That’s going to forever be linked to me. Hats off to Samantha. That’s one of my homies and I hope to see her down the road. Whatever she does, if you heard her voice, she’s going to kill it.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Good Karma Wrestling podcast, Bianca Belair gave her thoughts about what goals she has left in her wrestling career and how people like Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair helped elevate WWE’s Women’s division. Belair stated “I’ve accomplished a lot to quickly. I’ve main-evented WrestleMania Night One, I would love to main event WrestleMania Night Two because I feel like that’s a whole ‘nother status type of thing. I would love to be part of a women’s match that doesn’t even have a title. I would love to get to a WrestleMania where both women’s titles are defended, the tag team titles are defended, but we also have a women’s match on the card that, the storyline’s just so great that we don’t necessarily have to have a title. I feel like the men do it all the time, and I feel like it would show how much the women’s roster has evolved because that’s how much talent that we have. We just need more matches, we just have so many women. Being in a tag team was one of my goals, I had never done that before. I wanted to be a tag team champion. It’s new, it’s fresh. I also look up to people like Becky Lynch and Bayley, who have accomplished so much, but they also do so much for the division, they elevate the division, and I want my name to be in the same conversation as them. I feel like you know that you’re doing something right when you have enough equity to where you can reach out and help pull people up and leave this division better than it was when you came. They’ve done that, I want to do that, and I feel like I’m able to do that, starting with the tag team division and help elevate it, put more girls on the scene, showcase their talents. That’s one of my goals, to continue to elevate our women’s roster.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Dominik Mysterio gave his thoughts about his belief about him working an “old-school schedule” in 2023 helped him earn the respect of his peers in WWE. Mysterio stated “I think it happened when — I want to say, I could be totally wrong and they could all hate me, but I think it slowly started to happen when I went down to NXT and I was doing NXT, I was doing Raw, I was doing all the live events, and I was also doing SmackDown dark matches, occasionally SmackDown TV. So I was doing basically the old-school schedule, which was five days a week, leave Thursday, TV Friday, on the road Saturday [and] Sunday, TV Monday on Raw, TV Tuesday for NXT, and then I’m home Wednesday. So I think that got a lot of respect from the boys for me. I mean, I assume so, because they would see me everywhere, and they’d just look at me and be like, ‘Dude, do you not get a break?’ I’m like, ‘You know, I’m just here.’ Again, I could be wrong, they could all hate me. But I assume — because, like I said, a lot of the boys would come up to me and be like, ‘You got that old-school schedule.’” (Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com)

In the same interview, Dominik Mysterio also gave his thoughts about the potential for a Hair vs. Mask match between him and his father Rey Mysterio in the future. Mysterio stated “Nah, he would never. Plus, my hair is too luscious. I already beat him twice. If you think about all the times he’s beaten me. Last year at WrestleMania, he had to use two 6’8” offensive lineman from the Philadelphia Eagles to beat me. I get it. Trust men, I get it [flexes]. The year before that he had to use, what’s his name? The Bunny, Bad Bunny. He’s never actually beaten me clean, by himself, one-on-one. It’s never actually happened.” In response to host Chris Van Vliet stating that match would be interesting to do, Mysterio stated “I’m sure it would be. I don’t know if that’s something he would consider. I’d hate for him to have to show his ugly face to everyone again. I don’t want to do that to people, but at the same time, if it’s the necessary evil that must be done, we’ll see.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

WWE announced two new matches for the card of next week’s WWE SmackDown show on November 1st: