AEW New Year's Smash is a

professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...

television special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of en ...

produced by

All Elite Wrestling All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is an American professional wrestling promotion headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. It is owned and operated by Shahid Khan, Shahid and Tony Khan, with the latter serving as President (corporate title), president an ...

(AEW). Established by the

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

in 2021, the event is held annually around New Year's. The original January 2021 event aired as two back-to-back special episodes of AEW's flagship program, '' Wednesday Night Dynamite'', while the second event, which aired in December 2021, occurred during the same week, first as an episode of ''Dynamite'', then as a special episode of '' Friday Night Rampage'', with the events in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

and

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

retaining this format. The 2024 event reduced it to ''Rampage'' due to ''Dynamite'' airing as a different special that week. The ''Dynamite'' broadcast for the second event was notable for being the final ''Dynamite'' to air on

TNT Troponin T (shortened TnT or TropT) is a part of the troponin complex, which are proteins integral to the contraction of skeletal and heart muscles. They are expressed in skeletal and cardiac myocytes. Troponin T binds to tropomyosin and helps ...

before the show moved to TNT's sister channel TBS; ''Rampage'' remained on TNT. The 2024 event was notable as it was the final episode of ''Rampage'' due to the program's cancellation.

History

On the December 9, 2020, episode of '' Wednesday Night Dynamite'',

(AEW) announced that the December 30, 2020, and January 6, 2021, episodes would be a two-part event titled "New Year's Smash". However, on December 28, it was announced that the event had been postponed to January 6 and 13, 2021, due to the death of AEW wrestler

Brodie Lee Jonathan Huber (December 16, 1979 – December 26, 2020) was an American professional wrestler known as Brodie Lee. Huber performed under the ring name Luke Harper in WWE from 2012 to 2019, and as Mr. Brodie Lee in All Elite Wrestling (AEW) ...

, with the December 30 episode instead being held as a memorial event for Lee. Night 1 of New Year's Smash aired

live Live may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film * ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film * ''Live'' (2023 film), a Malayalam-language film *'' Live: Phát Trực Tiếp'', a Vietnamese-langua ...

on January 6, while Night 2 was taped on January 7 and aired on tape delay on January 13. On the November 19, 2021, episode of AEW's secondary program, '' Friday Night Rampage'' (which began airing in August), AEW announced New Year's Smash would return as the December 29 episode of ''Dynamite'' (the final episode of ''Dynamite'' on

before its move to TBS) and the

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve refers to the evening, or commonly the entire day, of the last day of the year, 31 December, also known as Old Year's Day. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated with dancing, eating, drinkin ...

episode of ''Rampage''. ''Dynamite'' aired live while ''Rampage'' aired on tape delay on December 31. This in turn established New Year's Smash as AEW's New Year's event, with the

and

events retaining the ''Dynamite'' and ''Rampage'' broadcast format. The 2024 event reduced it to just ''Rampage'' due to ''Dynamite'' airing as a different special that week. It was also the final episode of ''Rampage'' as the program was not included in AEW's media rights deal with

Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Outline of entertainment, entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It was formed from WarnerMedi ...

that took effect on January 1, 2025.

Events

References

Notes

External links

* {{All Elite Wrestling events, New Year's Smash All Elite Wrestling shows Holidays themed professional wrestling shows

History

Events

See also

References

Notes

External links