AEW Rampage

''AEW Rampage'', also known as ''Friday Night Rampage'' or simply ''Rampage'', is an American professional wrestling television program produced by the American promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) that premiered on August 13, 2021. It airs every Friday at 10 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on TNT in the United States; although major sporting events occasionally move it to an earlier or later time slot the same day or the next day (as a special ''Saturday Night Rampage'').

''Rampage'' was AEW's second weekly television show, following the premiere of ''Dynamite'', and the second professional wrestling program to air on TNT since the final episode of '' WCW Monday Nitro'' on March 26, 2001. With the premiere of '' Collision'' in June 2023 (which subsequently became AEW's secondary flagship program), and the cancellation of AEW's YouTube shows ('' Dark'' and '' Elevation''), ''Rampage'' would essentially succeed the YouTube shows by focusing on younger and mid-to-low card talent.

Episodes of ''Rampage'' are typically taped after the live broadcast of the preceding episode of ''Dynamite''. On occasion, some episodes are also taped after ''Collision'', while other episodes air live.

History

Original format (2021–2023)

The American professional wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) was officially announced and launched on January 1, 2019, and their weekly flagship television program, ''Dynamite'', began airing on TNT that October. On January 15, 2020, TNT's parent company WarnerMedia and AEW announced a US$175 million contract extension for ''Dynamite'' through 2023. As part of the new deal, it was also announced that AEW would be launching a second weekly television show.

In May 2021, AEW revealed their second weekly television show, and fourth program overall, as ''AEW Rampage'', which would begin airing on TNT on August 13 as a one-hour show on Fridays at 10pm Eastern Time (ET). During AEW's marquee event Double or Nothing on May 30, former WWE wrestler Mark Henry was announced to be a part of the ''Rampage'' commentary team as an analyst. On August 4, ''Dynamite'' and '' Dark''s commentators Excalibur and Taz and wrestler Chris Jericho, who had served as a guest commentator several times on ''Dynamite'', were announced to join Henry as ''Rampage''s four-man commentary team. AEW President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Khan said that the commentary team would not always be all four men, as Henry would also have other roles on the show, such as doing interviews. In September, AEW wrestler Ricky Starks replaced Henry on the commentary team, with Henry now just doing interviews on the show.

In an interview with '' PWInsider'', Khan stated that while ''Rampage'' would air live for most episodes, some episodes they would pre-tape, depending on the city that the preceding episode of ''Dynamite'' was held in (although this would later shift to most episodes being taped in conjunction with ''Dynamite'' with only a few airing live). He also said that ''Rampage'' would serve as the go-home show for AEW's pay-per-views (PPV), due to the show airing two days before those events. ''Rampage'' in turn replaced that role for''Dark''; as although ''Dark'' normally aired on Tuesdays, it would instead air on Fridays during the week of a PPV to serve as the go-home show. Khan also said that WarnerMedia had asked him if he would rather expand Wednesday's ''Dynamite'' to three hours, but he rejected the notion, stating that he did not want to run ''Dynamite'' for that length as he highly preferred that third hour as a separate show on a different night. He also claimed that ''Rampage'' would not be a secondary show to ''Dynamite'', and that it would be its partner or its equivalent. He further said that ''Dynamite'' and ''Rampage'' would be AEW's core properties, while their YouTube shows, ''Dark'' and '' Dark: Elevation'', would be their peripheral properties, essentially their developmental programs.

''Rampage'' airs immediately following WWE's own Friday television program, '' SmackDown'', which airs on Fox. Although ''Dynamite'' had run against WWE's '' NXT'' from October 2019 to April 2021, there was expectation that there would be no overlap between ''Rampage'' and ''SmackDown'' in nearly the entire country unless the latter were to run over its scheduled time, which ends at 10pm ET, when ''Rampage'' begins broadcasting. To date, this has occurred only once, which was on October 15, 2021. That night, ''SmackDown'' aired a special episode titled "Supersized SmackDown", which extended its runtime to 10:30pm with the additional 30 minutes airing commercial free, therefore directly competing with ''Rampage'' for its first 30 minutes. ''SmackDown'' had also aired on Fox's sister channel FS1 due to the MLB playoffs airing on Fox, which also decreased ''SmackDown''s normal average viewership. During the 30 minutes that the shows went head-to-head, ''Rampage'' beat ''SmackDown'' in the key demographic of viewers aged 18 to 49, drawing 328,000 views to ''SmackDown''s 285,000 views.

It was initially announced that both ''Dynamite'' and ''Rampage'' would be moving to TNT's sister channel TBS, also owned by WarnerMedia, in January 2022. However, on September 23, 2021, it was revealed that ''Rampage'' would remain on TNT while only ''Dynamite'' would move to TBS.

The May 6 and May 13, 2022, episodes of ''Rampage'' were moved to 5:30 p.m. ET in order to accommodate TNT's coverage of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. The May 20 episode was moved to 7 p.m. ET to make way for TNT's coverage of the NBA Western Conference finals.

Current format (2023–present)

As a result of an amended broadcasting deal with Warner Bros. Discovery (formerly WarnerMedia), AEW added a third weekly program on Saturday nights called '' Collision'', which premiered in June 2023 on TNT. The YouTube shows, ''Dark'' and ''Elevation'', were canceled to make way for ''Collision'', which was positioned as AEW's second main program, while ''Rampage'' shifted to focusing on younger wrestlers, essentially becoming what the YouTube shows were for the company.

Due to the NCAA March Madness coverage occurring on March 22, 2024, ''Rampage'' instead aired live on March 20 immediately after ''Dynamite''. Additionally, and for the first time for the program, ''Rampage'' aired on TBS that night.

Special episodes

Broadcasting

In the United States, ''Rampage'' currently airs live on Fridays on TNT at 10pm ET. The program was to move to TBS in January 2022, but in September, AEW announced that while ''Dynamite'' would move to TBS, ''Rampage'' would remain on TNT.

On September 25, 2019, AEW announced an international streaming deal with FITE TV primarily for regions outside of the United States and Canada via the " AEW Plus" package, which includes live streaming and replay access of ''Dynamite'' in simulcast with its U.S. airing. This was expanded to include ''Rampage''.

Canada

On August 9, 2021, PWInsider reported that TSN, which airs ''Dynamite'' in Canada, would stream ''Rampage'' online in simulcast with the U.S. through its website and TSN Direct service.

Europe

On July 3, 2021, WarnerTV Serie (known as TNT Serie until 24 September 2021) announced a deal to air ''Rampage'' on Monday nights in Germany.

On July 6, 2021, Toonami (another WarnerMedia channel) announced a deal to air ''Rampage'' in France.

On August 27, 2021, Sky Sport (owned by Comcast, which holds rights to a rival wrestling promotion, WWE in the United States) and AEW announced that ''Rampage'' would air on Mondays nights in Italy.

On January 1, 2022, AEW announced that ''Rampage'' would be broadcast every Tuesday night on ITV4 with repeats every Thursday night on ITV1 in the United Kingdom, it is also available to view on their streaming service ITVX.

On February 10, 2022, Warner TV announced that they would air ''Rampage'' in Poland.

In Spain, ''AEW'' announced that was going to air Rampage on TNT starting on June 19, 2022.

Latin America

On October 22, 2020, AEW reached an agreement with the digital platform Pluto TV, broadcasting its repeat events (including past pay-per-view) with commentators in Spanish from Latin America.

On October 1, 2021, ''Rampage'' began airing on Space, a WarnerMedia International channel in Brazil and on Space's Spanish feed, available throughout Latin America on Saturdays. On September 30, 2022, it was announced that AEW would stop airing on Space in Latin America on October 1, with Brazil following on December 30.

Africa

''Rampage'' began airing on TNT Africa on October 2, 2021, in Sub-Saharan Africa. The show airs every Saturday morning at 10 AM CAT, one week after the U.S. broadcast.

Asia

In India, ''Rampage'' airs on Eurosport starting on August 15, 2021, and later at the same time as the American airing from August 21, 2021, every Saturday 7:30 AM IST. Eurosport is owned by Discovery Communications, which is set to acquire WarnerMedia later in 2021. ''Rampage'' began airing on Premier Sports in the Philippines in October 2021 On April 8, 2022, it was announced that as part of the AEW and NJPW working relationship that ''Rampage'' would air in Japan on NJPW World.

Oceania

Rampage airs on ESPN2 starting February 18, 2023, in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Niue, Nauru, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Northern Marianas, Tokelau, Tahiti, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, and Wallis and Futuna.

See also

* List of professional wrestling television series

Notes

References

External links

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Rampage
2021 American television series debuts
2020s American television series
American live television series
American professional wrestling television series
American English-language television shows
TNT (American TV network) original programming