WWE: Early Start Time for Elimination Chamber 2024, R-Truth on Almost Losing Career from Torn Quad Infection, More on NXT Jan. 16, 2024 Viewership

WWE Announces Early Start Time & Releases Official Poster for Elimination Chamber 2024

WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque recently announced that this year’s Elimination Chamber event on February 24th in Perth, Australia will be airing live on Peacock and the WWE Network starting at 5:00AM EST.

The official poster featuring Rhea Ripley as the cover star was also released for the upcoming event.

The most unforgiving, chaotic and brutal structure in @WWE heads down under for the first time ever…#WWEChamber: Perth emanates live from @OptusStadium on Feb. 24 @peacock @WWENetwork pic.twitter.com/xU4yRg8gEA

— Triple H (@TripleH) January 19, 2024

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R-Truth Comments on Feeling He Might Not Wrestle Again Following Infection from Quad Tear Injury Recovery

As noted before, R-Truth made his return from a quad tear injury at this past November’s Survivor Series WarGames 2023 event.

A recent episode of The Ringer’s Cheap Heat with Peter Rosenberg podcast featured R-Truth as the guest. One of the topics discussed included R-Truth revealing that he had suffered an infection in his leg during his recovery from his torn quad injury and him feeling at one point that he would not be able to wrestle again due to one of the options was for amputation.

“Yes, there was a period (when I thought I might not be able to wrestle again). I mean, I had a hole in my knee. A hole. I had five different bacteria that caused an infection, along with MRSA, staph and they cousins and kinfolks.

It started off as a routine quad tear. As a matter of fact, I tore my bottom quad and they went in and I guess it could have happened during surgery. But I went to get the stitches out and that’s when we found out the bacteria, the infection was eating from the inside out so that’s where the hole came from and I just remember the doctor would never give me a high five… He said, ‘Well, we gotta get this under control. If we can’t get this under control, we’ll have to think of other options…’ He was straight shooting with me. ‘You’re in the woods big time. We have to get this under control.’ It wouldn’t heal. It would not heal. So then I had to go three months — I had to have a wound VAC. I don’t know if you ever heard of that before. I’d never heard of it. It was a V.A.C. that was on my knee that kept sucking — I don’t know if that’s P.G. (he joked). It kept sucking the old blood up and putting in the new blood and all that stuff. I had to wear that for six weeks and along with a P.I.C.C. line. I don’t know if you ever heard of that before… So I had to have that for eight weeks. Did that and once all that was over with, the stitches started coming out on their own. So I had stitches coming through my knee, out by themselves. So my body wasn’t agreeing to them, so I had to go back into surgery for a third time. Third surgery and the infection was still there. So I had to get another P.I.C.C. line as well. So man, it was just a good four months, five months of just trying to take care of the infection, slow it down, stop it, not go mentally crazy because there was a chance, he said, the other option was amputation. So to go from doing the (WWE) 24/7 stuff. I was running around, doing things with my kids, to NXT, me and Grayson Waller tearing it down, doing things to stopping and then getting told this, it was a big reality check. It was a pump the breaks moment.”

R-Truth also gave his thoughts about how he was able to keep a positive mindset despite the worst case scenario he received from his doctor.

“I think just the initial shock of reality keeps you calm because it’s almost surreal to you. It’s almost, wow, and my mind is replaying everything that I’ve done in my career, my years, my life. From being on stage rapping to in the ring to training. Anything and everything I’ve done to that point was replayed in my mind. So I think just being humble all these years kept me calm. Having faith kept me calm. Having my family around kept me calm. I was getting calls from different people. That kept me calm and just me knowing, okay, it’d be a big adjustment, big change but life has to go on. It’s just a lot of things I had to juggle, deal with, accept, swallow and keep it moving.”

R-Truth also gave his thoughts about what he has left to achieve for his wrestling career.

“Not really (is there anything left for me to do in wrestling). R-Truth just kind of takes it as it comes, and other than having that title match at a WrestleMania and performing at WrestleMania, all in one night, my check-off list, I check ‘em off as they get thrown at me… I’ve never had a singles WrestleMania match…”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

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More on NXT Viewership for January 16, 2024

The January 16th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a large decline in overall viewership and key demographic rankings and a slight decline in key demographic ratings.

NXT drew 683,000 viewers and a 0.19 key demographic rating on USA Network. NXT’s key demographic ranking was 12th place.

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

Dave Meltzer reported that the main reasons for NXT’s declines this week was due to the large decline from their overall key demographic viewership group, which was down 9.6% compared to last week’s show.

In terms of notable head-to-head competition, the NBA game of Denver Nuggets vs. Philadelphia 76ers drew 1,683,000 viewers on TNT, the College basketball game of Kansas vs. Oklahoma State drew 650,000 viewers on ESPN, the College basketball game of Syracuse vs. Pittsburgh drew 566,000 viewers on ESPN, the College basketball game of Butler vs. Xavier drew 178,000 viewers on FS1, the College basketball game of St. John’s vs. Seton Hall drew 175,000 viewers on FS1, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City drew 760,000 viewers on BRAVO, Moonshiners drew 858,000 viewers on Discovery Channel, Curse of Oak Island drew 2,459,000 viewers on History Channel, 1000-LB Sisters drew 1,203,000 viewers on TLC, and 1000-LB Sisters Supersize drew 593,000 viewers on TLC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 254,000 viewers.

In terms of peak viewership, NXT’s peak overall viewership reportedly was at 744,000 viewers during the quarter hour featuring the Carmelo Hayes, Trick Williams, & Ilja Dragunov backstage segment and the Lyra Valkyria & Tatum Paxley vs. Elektra Lopez & Lola Vice match. NXT peak key demographic viewership reportedly was at 274,000 viewers for the same quarter hour. NXT’s overrun reportedly drew 674,000 overall viewers and 253,000 key demographic viewers.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 13.8% in overall viewership and up 39.6% in key demographic viewership.