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AEW Announces Special Friday Night Episode Of Collision

By John Canton • Published 4th September 2023
AEW Collision stage

There will be a special Friday night episode of AEW Collision leading into Rampage on the same night while also facing some tough competition.

The current AEW television schedule for American views sees Dynamite airing for two hours from 8 p.m. ET on TBS, Rampage airs usually as a taped show on TNT at 10 p.m. ET after WWE Smackdown and then Collision is a Saturday night show at 8 p.m. for two hours and it’s usually live.

It was announced today by AEW that on Friday, November 17th, there will be a live two-hour episode of Collision followed by a one-hour episode of Rampage. It will take place at the KIA Forum in Los Angeles.

The reason for that special Friday edition of Collision is because the AEW Full Gear pay-per-view is scheduled for Saturday, November 18th at the Kia Forum. It wouldn’t make sense for AEW to put an episode of Collision on Saturday night at the same time as their Full Gear pay-per-view.

Full Gear will likely be the final AEW pay-per-view of the year unless they choose to add another show in December.

AEW Collision Will Go Head To Head With WWE Smackdown

By moving Collision to Friday, it will put AEW’s newest television show against WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown which airs on FOX. The November 17th episode of Smackdown takes place in Evansville, Indiana. It will be eight days before the WWE Survivor Series PLE on November 25th.

There is obviously a big difference in the television audience between WWE Smackdown and AEW Collision. Smackdown usually gets around 2.3 to 2.5 million viewers on FOX as the most-watched pro wrestling show in the US. Meanwhile, Collision is on a tough night on Saturdays with an audience of around 500,000 viewers some weeks, but it can fluctuate depending on the card.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see both Smackdown and Collision have very strong lineups on November 17th.