Damage CTRL vs. Pure Fusion Collective Match and More Announced for Jan. 20th WWE RAW Show
WWE announced one new match and three new segments for the card of next week’s WWE RAW show on January 20th at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.
In regards to the new match, this was announced to be a tag team match of Damage CTRL (Dakota Kai & IYO SKY) vs. Two members of Pure Fusion Collective (Shayna Baszler, Zoey Stark, & Sonya Deville).
In regards to the new segments, this was announced to be promo segments featuring Sami Zayn and Jey Uso and an appearance by Lyra Valkyria.
Current card for January 20th WWE RAW show:
- Damage CTRL (Dakota Kai & IYO SKY) vs. Two members of Pure Fusion Collective (Shayna Baszler, Zoey Stark, & Sonya Deville)
- New Day vs. mystery opponents
- Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre
- JBL to appear
- Lyra Valkyria to appear
- Sami Zayn to speak
- Jey Uso to speak
Drew McIntyre Comments on His Feud with CM Punk
The Daily Mail held a recent interview with Drew McIntyre. One of the topics discussed included McIntyre’s thoughts about his lengthy feud with CM Punk in WWE.
“I didn’t really anticipate anything in the beginning, I was dealing with my personal feelings towards him, understanding why he was brought in. It’s a numbers thing. He sells a lot of T-shirts. And after the injury, I was going to exploit it. And it’s interesting, my name wasn’t mentioned once when it came to dream matches for CM Punk. And I was like, ‘Yeah, weird. It’s almost as if there’s a guy that was around him all this time when he was a terrible person who might have stories.’ With the Punk process, having so much real feeling, so much material, and not just my ideas… obviously creative are just absolutely on fire, and with Hunter [Triple H] leading the charges, setting these awesome shots up for me, all I have to do is put it in the back of the net.
It was an interesting and fun process, and it’s better than any therapy in the world. I don’t need a therapist to talk to, I’ve got a microphone every week, because you see some of the stuff I say, especially these days, even talking about my my personal tragedies and the likes I sounded out on TV. And during the Punk stuff, I was sounding out a lot of feelings when he came back eventually and started saying his piece.
As much as we have certain feelings towards each other, we both are aware we’ve got certain magic with each other. It’s a tale as old as time. The more people have a genuine disdain for each other, people can truly feel it. And if you’re actually good at your job, like we are, it does create magic. And the whole process was magic, and the cell itself was a match that we talked about forever.
I will say, however my feelings are towards him, I went completely gangbusters for him. I didn’t hold back. On TV, I can only go so far, but, on social, but it’s my social. You can’t tell me what to do. I went overboard. And the company could have asked me to pull back if they wanted me to, and I’d have said, ‘No, it’s my social’. But I went at him and went at him. And I’ve done that with a couple of people, and they have got a boo boo face. Not that I care, but he didn’t. He ate it like a man, and then came back with what he had to say. So I’ll give him that.”
More on NXT Jan. 14, 2025 Viewership
The January 14th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a small decline in overall viewership and key demographic ratings when compared to the updated ratings numbers for the January 7th show and not original numbers, which included numbers from The CW’s Los Angeles market’s news programming coverage of the California wildfires
NXT drew 779,000 viewers and a 0.17 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 that week was due to a combination of the show not airing on homes with Optimum Cable due to an on-going carriage dispute with The CW and the large decline from their overall key demographic viewership group, which was down 21.4% compared to last week’s show.
In terms of head-to-head competition, the TGL Golf event drew 1,005,000 viewers on ESPN, the NBA basketball game of Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Indiana Pacers drew 956,000 viewers on TNT, the NBA basketball game of Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks drew 853,000 viewers on TNT, the College basketball game of Texas A&M vs. Kentucky drew 694,000 viewers on ESPN2, the College basketball game of Miami vs. Duke drew 587,000 viewers on ESPN2, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta drew 375,000 viewers on MTV, 7 Little Johnstons drew 595,000 viewers on TLC, Curse of Oak Island drew 1,653,000 viewers on History Channel, Moonshiners drew 661,000 viewers on Discovery Channel, Real Housewives of New York City drew 483,000 viewers on BRAVO, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills drew 827,000 viewers on BRAVO.
In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 224,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 70.6% in favor of males.
NXT’s peak overall viewership was 883,000 viewers for the first quarter featuring the Oba Femi, Tony D’Angelo, & Ridge Holland promo segment & brawl with Eddy Thorpe. NXT’s peak key demographic viewership was 275,000 viewers for the same quarter hour.
In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 14.1% in overall viewership but down 11.8% in key demographic viewership.