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WWE Announces “New Year’s Knockout Week” To Begin 2024

By John Canton • Published 23rd December 2023
wwe new years knockout week

The first week of 2024 will see WWE produce six big shows including multiple championship matches on their main three television shows.

To end 2023, WWE will have taped episodes of Raw on Christmas Day and Smackdown on December 29th. There will be a new episode of NXT on December 26th with Dijak facing Eddy Thorpe in an NXT Underground match as one of the featured matches on that show.

New Year’s Day falls on a Monday in 2024, so that means the WWE crew will be ready to present Raw Day 1 in San Diego on January 1st.

In addition to a huge episode of Raw, a Tweet/X post by WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque included a video promoting a week of shows for the first week of the new year.

Here’s the lineup for the first week of 2024 that WWE is calling “New Year’s Knockout Week.”

* January 1 – WWE Raw Day 1 on USA Network from San Diego.

* January 2 – NXT New Year’s Evil on USA Network from Orlando.

* January 3: Best of The Bump 2023 on Peacock.

* January 4: WWE The Best of 2023 and a live WWE Preview Special 2024. Those will be on Peacock.

* January 5: WWE SmackDown New Year’s Revolution on FOX from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

The “Knockout” usage is interesting because TNA/IMPACT have called their women’s wrestlers “knockouts” for 20 years. In this case, it’s likely because WWE is owned by Endeavor as part of the TKO Group with the UFC with “TKO” meaning “Technical Knockout” in the fight game.

Huge Title Matches Set To Take Place During WWE Knockout Week

There are several championship matches taking place during New Year’s Knockout Week.

On Day 1 WWE Raw, Seth “Freakin” Rollins will defend the World Heavyweight Championship against Drew McIntyre while Rhea Ripley will put the Women’s World Title on the line against Ivy Nile.

The January 2nd New Year’s Evil edition of NXT will see Ilja Dragunov defend his NXT Title against Trick Williams while Lyra Valkyria will defend the NXT Women’s Title against Blair Davenport. Trick and Blair earned their title shots by winning Iron Survivor Challenge matches.

As for the New Year’s Revolution edition of Smackdown on January 5th, there is only one title match, but there are two championship contender’s matches.

* AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton vs. LA Knight – The winner will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title at Royal Rumble.

* United States Championship Contender’s Tournament Finals: Santos Escobar vs. Kevin Owens – The winner will challenge Logan Paul for the US Title.

* WWE Women’s Championship: IYO SKY vs. Michin

It’s a big week of shows heading into what should be a huge 2024 for World Wrestling Entertainment.