For a comparison, during November on Destination America (in 57 million homes as compared to POP TV’s 72 million), the show averaged 244,000 for the first run episodes and 84,000 for the replay for shows taped months earlier as opposed to the same day with promises of a new start and the ending of a several month long World title tournament.
TNA has always gotten hurt whenever it has switched days, even though it’s technically the third straight week on Pop on a Tuesday. The previous two shows did 111,000 and 136,000 viewers and were “best of” shows with little publicity.
In the first semifinal match last night, EC3 advanced by defeating Bobby Lashley while in the second semifinal, Matt Hardy beat Eric Young. EC3 beat Hardy in the main event of the show to win back the TNA World title. Kurt Angle was also on the show, doing a promo about his farewell tour that led to an announcement of a match with Drew Galloway on next week’s show.
On the induction weekend of July 14-16, Dave will be recognized during the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame induction weekend. The Jim Melby Award recognizes excellence in professional journalism, named in honor of Jim Melby, a professional wrestling historian and journalist. Tickets are available for the entire weekend by emailing the museum or by calling (319) 233-0745.
Also set to be inducted during the weekend: former UFC fighter and MMA personality Chael Sonnen. Four more inductees will be announced later this year.
From the press release:
“I am very proud to receive this honor because of what it entails and because of my great respect for Jim Melby and the connection with Lou Thesz,” said Meltzer. “In 1971, I sent a newsletter to Melby, and he praised it in his fan club column in Wrestling Monthly Magazine. I started getting subscribers based on his recommendation. The truth is, there is not a chance in the world my life would have taken the turn it did without Melby, and he was so gracious with me when I was in my preteen and teenager years.”
Besides his work being read here on our site, Dave can also be read on MMA Fighting.com where he contributes as an MMA Senior Writer. He’s published, edited, and written the Observer newsletter since 1983 and has worked for The National Sports Daily and Yahoo Sports in his long career.
NBC announced Tuesday morning that former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey will be hosting the Saturday, January 23rd episode of Saturday Night Live, putting her in a very small category of athletes who have hosted an episode of the iconic series.
Yahoo’s Kevin Iole reported the story this morning, confirming reports from those close to the show that had started surfacing two days earlier.
Rousey will be the first MMA fighter to host the show. Rousey was actually in Dwayne Johnson’s backstage entourage when he hosted the show this past March, the night before WrestleMania when the two did the in-ring skit together with HHH and Stephanie McMahon.
Iole noted that the only previous fighters to host the show have been Marvin Hagler and George Foreman. Past athletes who have hosted include Michael Jordan, Chris Evert, Derek Jeter, Lebron James, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning.
After appearing in the Entourage movie and Furious 7, Rousey is set to be the lead in the Road House reboot that will film this year.
A lot of promotions enjoyed a Christmas break this week, but while things don’t really wake up until the middle of January, there were still things going on in the UK. Here are five things you need to know about British wrestling this week:
1) The time for talk is over.
For the last few years, British wrestling fans – although not necessarily fans of British wrestling – have had their own TV show on Challenge TV every Sunday night. WrestleTalk TV, which follows TNA on the mostly-retro quiz channel, is a discussion show, mostly concerned with the mainstream promotions, and TNA. Most of the interviews, given WWE’s embargo on all but the most valuable (to them) outlets, are with former-WWE stars or current TNA wrestlers, and for fans of that kind of thing it’s been a weekly staple of varying interest. This week, however, Challenge TV announced that the show was cancelled, although producer Alex Shane was quick to claim it would appear on another channel soon. In it’s place – although the exact time slot is yet to be determined – will be another Shane-produced wrestling show, but this time a quiz show more in fitting with the rest of the channel’s output.
As well as the main show, there was a monthly British Wrestling Round-Up show, which followed late into the evening, but mostly featured footage from just the one promotion, New Generation Wrestling from Hull. Nothing has been announced as to the future of this show. While it wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, the show did at least maintain a visibility for something other than WWE & TNA on British TV, and for that alone it’s loss should be noted with some disappointment.
2) Even on a quiet Christmas Day, you can still watch British wrestling.
For many years TV was seen as the be all and end all for British wrestling companies, and more than one promotion killed itself trying to make that happen. The last few years, however, have seen an explosion in online on-demand channels, made possible by advancements in broadband speeds and editing software available to even the tiniest promotion. The upshot of all this is that there is plenty of quality British wrestling to watch, whenever you want to watch it. The main leaders in the field are Insane Championship Wrestling and PROGRESS, who have mobilised their hefty fanbases into subscribing to on-demand channels. As well as recordings of live shows, both promotions offer exclusive footage only available to subscribers, such as ICW’s Friday Night Fight Club and the excellent Jimmy Havoc Q&A on Demand PROGRESS. Both channels utilise Pivotshare software, and are available through all the usual platforms.
Many other promotions – and I’ll try to list them later – offer a different model, whereby you pay for access to one or more of their shows to stream or download. Some host their own shows, while others are available through third party sites like Your Fight Site and Wrestling Store, and use a variety of different platforms, although Vimeo is popular. Among the major promotions to use this model are Revolution Pro-Wrestling, Preston City Wrestling, Southside Wrestling Entertainment, and IPW:UK, but there are also shows from Grand-Pro, Pro-Wrestling Chaos, LDN, NGW, FutureShock, and many more out there. In addition, RevPro offer a weekly show on their YouTube channel, the first 2016 taping for which is this coming Sunday and it is a stacked card.
All this means that, if it happens in the UK, you can pretty much see it within days on one platform or another, and makes it very easy – and enjoyable – to be a fan of British wrestling . Nothing comes close to the live show experience (and there are still a couple of promotions who offer nothing but that experience) but having it beamed live to your living room is the next best thing.
3) Joey Ryan’s penis is stronger than we thought.
So how was your Christmas? Yeah, mine too. Oh, did you get to see Joey Ryan replicate his famous spot with Danshoku Dino, only in a sleepy Cambridgeshire market town instead of Tokyo, and with five other men instead of a Japanese sex pest? You didn’t? Oh, man. So, yeah, Joey Ryan came to the UK last week, and of course he played up on that spot. At Southside last Sunday, at the sold out Season’s Beatings in St Neots, he competed in a six-man Giant Lollipop On A Pole match, which also featured Rockstar Spud and Martin Kirby, and a ton of brilliant comedy spots that had me crying with laughter. Spud won the match – does it matter? – but all six men (and referee Joel Allen, who played his part, too) deserved a standing ovation.
Southside are one of the UK’s second-tier promotions, never grabbing the big headlines but putting on solid shows with a good roster and a sprinkling of the more interesting imports. Already for 2016, they’ve announced Sami Callihan, Angelico, Timothy Thatcher, and Leva Bates, but the main focus is placed on their British stars, which include Will Ospreay, Jimmy Havoc, and el Ligero. Ligero main-evented Sunday’s show, in a Loser Leaves Southside match against Kay Lee Ray, and even though the result was slightly spoiled by Ligero appearing on the poster for February’s show, the match was well-worked, hard-fought, and painful-looking (if a little overbooked).
Also on the show, Stixx continued his battle against Joseph Conners’s Righteous Army, and Nixon Newell defended her Queen Of Southside title. While the likes of ICW, PROGRESS, PCW, and RevPro get the major headlines – and rightly so for the most part – Southside (and promotions like them) are really worth checking out if you get the chance. They’re not “my” brand but I’m never disappointed by their shows.
4) PROGRESS are HUGE teases.
With all their shows for 2016 seemingly announced and a stunning amount of season tickets already sold for the London shows, you might be forgiven for thinking that PROGRESS can sit back and just roll out whatever they’ve got planned for the year as it comes. On Tuesday, however, they tweeted that they would be announcing HUGE news on New Year’s Day, and their fanbase exploded into speculation. The big guess was some kind of TV deal, what with a test being filmed at their last London show, but that was quickly shot down by management with promoter Jim Smallman repeating his opinion that TV wasn’t necessary for a promotion to be a success in 2016. Other guesses have included a tour (ICW run two successful tours a year in the UK), a live webcast of a show, and a big show at a bigger venue than the 700-seaters they traditionally run. Like a lot of “announcements” in this most carny of industries, it could turn out to be a damp squib but I’d lay money on it being something really, really interesting. Check your Twitter feed on Friday at midday to find out.
5) Shows still happened.
Although live action was thin on the ground over Christmas week, it wasn’t entirely absent. As well as the Southside show reported above, and a few shows at holiday camps open to seasonal vacationers, New Generation Wrestling ran Hull, and WrestleForce promoted Witham Town Hall. At NGW’s Eternal Glory At Christmas show, NGW champion Nathan Cruz defeated Matt Myers to keep hold of the title he’s worn since July, although Zack Gibson – who added Zack Sabre Jr on this show to his list of recent conquests – will be gunning for him in the new year. Also on the show were Mark Andrews, Bubblegum, Rampage Brown, and el Ligero, as well as a host of other NGW regulars.
The promotion have already announced their big show for next year, May’s Ultimate Showdown, and will be hoping to capitalise on a nationwide tour in the spring. WrestleForce’s Festive Fury, held in the Essex town of Witham, featured all their usual characters, some of whom may or may not also be regulars in the RetroFutureVerse of Lucha Britannia. Former WWE developmental prospect The Zulu Warrior retained his International Championship, seeing off the challenge of Joey Ozbourne, while the team of Peace & Brad O’Brien sent the fans home happy with a victory in the main event over the evil Voodoo & Damien. Also on the show were Richard Parliament, “Blackbelt” Tom Dawkins, and a good shout for rookie of the year 2016, the Punjabi Prince (Malik Waseem), and – as always at WrestleForce’s slightly surreal outings – a fun time was had by all.
Next weekend sees us rocket into 2016 with shows from three of the big names of British wrestling.
Despite recent speculation that he wouldn’t be at Wrestlemania in 2016 due to ongoing movie commitments, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson confirmed via Instagram Monday that he would indeed make an appearance at the WWE’s marquee event.
The show is expected to set an all-time pro wrestling attendance record and Rock admittedly wants to play his own part in helping set that attendance record.
Wrestlemania 32 will be held at AT&T Stadium in Dallas as part of a big weekend that also features an NXT TakeOver event, the annual Hall of Fame ceremony and the always-raucous post-Mania RAW, traditionally the hottest and most highly rated show of the year.
This will be the fifth straight Wrestlemania appearance for Johnson, who had a two-year break during which he and the company were on tenuous terms in 2009 and 2010. In 2011, he made his return to host the Atlanta show, and got involved in the WWE championship match between John Cena and The Miz, leading to a challenge to Cena at the following year’s show in his hometown of Miami, which would end up being a non-title match.
Following that show, Rock announced that he was “back” and his goal now was to win the WWE World title. He did just that at the following year’s Royal Rumble, ending CM Punk’s year-plus reign. This set up a return match with Cena, who had won the Rumble match. Rock dropped the belt to Cena in the main event of Wrestlemania 29 and suffered a serious injury in that match. The injury delayed the filming of the big-budget Hercules movie and put into question the idea of Rock ever wrestling another match.
In 2014, at the New Orleans Superdome (or Silverdome), the Rock made an announced and unadvertised appeared in the show’s opening segment. He, Steve Austin and Mania host Hulk Hogan went back and forth in an entertaining verbal sparring match. The three shared beers without any physical confrontation.
At least year’s show in another unadvertised, but not unexpected, appearance, Rock appeared again to break up a Stephanie McMahon/Triple H interview segment. This led to a verbal barrage by Stephanie on the Rock in which she also got physical. Not one to bestow physical violent on a woman (especially in this PG era), Rock introduced then-UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey to physically confront Stephanie. Rousey was seated at ringside and entered the ring in perhaps the most memorable moment of the entire show.
This was expected to set up a potential match, or even matches, involving Rock, Rousey, Stephanie and Triple H at this year’s show. Rousey’s movie commitments and UFC contract led to her being taken out of the equation fairly early, and it was reported a couple months back already that Rock would not be available for a match either.
His appearance on the show this year should help to some degree, but him not being in a match will prevent it from making a major impact. Nothing is going to top last year’s appearance and we’ve already seen him wrestle in high-profile matches at recent shows. But this certainly won’t hurt and gives WWE a name with some mainstream credibility to put on the show’s marquee and in advertising hype for the event.
The Big News: Sami Zayn returned after shoulder surgery.
The Medium News: The London crowd loved Sami Zayn and Chad Gable. Oh and Jason Jordan got some love just because he was Gable’s partner.
The Little Beaver Sized News: The fans didn’t love anyone else.
*****
Jason Jordan & Chad Gable won a Fatal 4-Way Match over The Vaudevillians, The Hype Bros and Blake & Murphy
We are still in London and are kicking things off with 4-way tag team action featuring 2 sets of former Tag Team Champions. The Vaudevillians came out as Sherlock Holmes and Watson and played up as babyfaces despite turning heel just a few weeks ago. The fans liked the Vaudevillians, but they absolutely loved Jordan & Gable. They liked the Hype Bros…until Mojo blind tagged himself in, which made Gable go to the apron.
We had a series where everyone came in, one at a time, to throw someone out of the ring and that led to an 8-way standoff. Gable ended up being in the match for the majority of it as the fans would just chant for Gable anytime he tagged out. At one point Gable went for the hot tag and in the Perfect Timing Department, just as he dove for the tag, Jordan got yanked off the apron.
Jordan did get his hot tag and we got an 8-way free for all. After depositing the other 5 on the outside, Gable pinned Blake with their move where Jordan threw him into the air and Gable caught him with a bridging back suplex.
– Last week, Emma was being worked on after her match with Asuka. Dana was complaining about what she would do to Asuka when Asuka walked in. Asuka mocked Dana by patting her on the head and then doing the Emma dance. Dana waited until Asuka left to state that this wasn’t over.
– We got a video package for the entire UK tour.
-Tye Dillinger is a heel this week. Maybe he’s always a heel, but he never comes across that way. Anyway he is going to show Sami Zayn why he is the Perfect 10.
– The Drifter Elias Sampson is still on his way. This time he is literally walking on railroad tracks. Maybe Nia Jax would have gotten to NXT quicker than 9 weeks if she walked on the train tracks.
– Next week is Best of NXT 2015 Part 1. Well these next two weeks are going to be skippable fun.
– Baron Corbin is happy he beat Apollo Crews last week. He declared himself the #1 Contender and uncrowned NXT Champion.
The Drifter Elias Sampson defeated The Svelte Bull Dempsey
Bull Dempsey has a new theme song. He still has his Dr. Death Steve Williams/Michael Elgin robe and he now weighs in at 299 ¾ pounds, which was completely ignored by the announcers. You know, I was only joking when I called Elias Sampson “The Drifter”, well now it’s his actual nickname.
Corey Graves made reference to Big Daddy Shirley Crabtree and Bull did jumping jacks before the match started. The WWE production team did an exceptional amount of cuts and zooming during this match, which gave me a headache.
The crowd was dead for 99% of it, just when they started making noise Elias put his finger to his lips to ask them to be quiet. Talk about bad timing. Anyway he won with the Diving Elbow Drop. It looked pretty good.
Elias pretended to play guitar in tune to his theme song and literally no one cared.
– Dash & Dawson were happy to retain the straps. They called Enzo & Cass were one of the best tag teams in the world, but gleefully pointed out that they were the best, before wishing the Jersey Boys a Happy Holidays. That was nice of them after they broke Colin’s leg.
Sami Zayn pinned Tye Dillinger
Sami Zayn was last seen at NXT Takeover: Unstoppable in May, where his match with then-NXT Champion Kevin Owens ended in a ref stoppage when he was given the Pop Up Power Bomb on the ring apron. Of course he was injured trying to psych the fans up before his match with John Cena. I am not sure if that was a worse injury than Randy Orton getting injured taking the garbage out.
I missed a lot about Sami, even his theme song, which is weird since I bought it off iTunes a year ago, so I could have listened to it at literally any time. The fans sang Sami’s theme song, which in case you forget, is completely instrumental.
The fans went absolutely nuts for Zayn’s entrance, but settled down when Tye took over. This was actually taped after the Takeover show last week, which is pretty weird. Let it be known that in 2015 Tye Dillinger’s match was after Finn Balor and Samoa Joe’s match.
RANDOM TRIVIA: If you think Tye Dillinger’s match going after Finn vs Joe was weird, in 1989 during the classic Flair-Steamboat series, the two of them never finished a show. At Chi-Town Rumble, for some strange reason, WCW did a Kendall Windham-Steve Casey match that went 25 minutes and not even Dave Meltzer stuck around for. (WCW officials simply forgot they were still wrestling and never gave them the cue to go home) At Clash of the Champions VI they then taped Sting vs Rip Morgan and Lex Luger vs Jack Victory. Finally at WrestleWar 89 they had Road Warriors vs Mike Rotunda/o & Steve Williams AND Eddie Gilbert & Rick Steiner vs Kevin Sullivan & Dan Spivey.
Suddenly Tye Dillinger isn’t such a bad way to close the show.
No one cared about 99% of what Tye did. The only thing they got excited for was a Dillinger Superkick that they bought as a finish. Other than that they only cared for Sami. Zayn hit all of his moves, including the Blue Thunder Bomb and the t-bone suplex into the corner, before winning with the Helluva Kick.
After the match, Sami took the mic and very happily proclaimed he was back. Sami stated that he has had a series of disappointments in 2015, between losing the title to Kevin Owens and injuring himself vs Sami Zayn, but the trend is broken tonight. Sami put over the crowd, saying more and more great things will happen with NXT in 2016. He finished things off by promising that he will have a great 2016.
That does it for this week. I hope everyone has an excellent Christmas and we’ll see you again next week. Until then, make sure to say your vitamins and take your prayers!
The Monday, December 21st edition of WWE RAW featuring the Slammy Awards show maintained its audience better than most weeks, and did better than most weeks this past Fall.
The three-hour show did 3.37 million viewers, down 13 percent from last week’s unusually large number. However, it was still above the levels of most of the Fall season. Just two weeks ago, the show had fallen to 3.16 million viewers.
Raw probably benefited from a low-rated NFL game on ESPN as competition as the Detroit Lions vs. New Orleans Saints game did 10.90 million viewers.
The first hour started at normal Fall levels, but the second and third hour decline wasn’t there at the rate it usually is.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 3.44 million viewers
9 p.m. 3.37 million viewers
10 p.m. 3.32 million viewers
The show’s main event was WWE Intercontinental Champion Dean Ambrose vs. Sheamus in a cage match. The other big item of note is that John Cena returns next week, so it will be interesting to see how that affects viewership.
Today is Slammy Award day at WWE, which means a series of awards (some tongue in cheek, some serious) will be released throughout the day with what the company believes are the major awards being released throughout the three-hour Raw tonight from Minneapolis.
Usually this builds to the fan voted Superstar of the Year award at the end of Raw. Given the timing of Roman Reigns winning the title this past week and all voting being done this week, plus the other leading candidates, Seth Rollins, John Cena and Brock Lesnar all being off television the past two months, he would look to be the favorite.
These awards will be announced throughout the day on WWE.com and will get updated here as they do:
Tag Team of the Year – The New Day would seem like the favorite here.
Hashtag of the Year
Celebrity Moment of the Year – Stephen Amell, Jon Stewart and Wayne Rooney would be the favorites here.
Tell Me You Just Didn’t Say That Moment of the Year
Best John Cena Open Challenge match of the year – Choices are Cesaro, Dolph Ziggler, Sami Zayn, Dean Ambrose and Neville.
The following awards will be announced on the Raw pregame show on the WWE Network starting at 6 PM EST:
Rivalry of the Year – Undertaker vs. Lesnar would be a favorite but you can’t predict fan voting on something like this
Double Cross of the Year
Surprise Return of the Year
Best WWE Network Original Series
These awards will air live on Raw:
Superstar of the Year
Match of the Year – Candidates are John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins at Royal Rumble, Sting vs. HHH at WrestleMania, Cena vs. Kevin Owens at Elimination Chamber, Reigns vs. Alberto Del Rio vs Dolph Ziggler vs. Owens on Raw, Lesnar vs. Undertaker Hell in a Cell
Diva of the Year – Choices are Nikki Bella, Noami, Charlotte, Paige and Sasha Banks
Breakout Star of the Year – Owens, Neville, Charlotte, Tyler Breeze and Braun Strowman.
Fortunately, The Miz was shown backstage watching this on TV (at a preposterous angle of course) with megaphone in hand, rather than shouting through it at ringside. An admission here that that particular piece of this promising nascent Neville storyline did not work on Monday night.
Lots of Neville using his speed to avoid Rusev and employ some trusty arm-wringers to start here – before the Bulgarian caught him off a cross-body attempt and fallaway slammed him leading into the break. Back with Rusev continuing to get the heat, working a slow methodical pace that fails to hold the interest. Neville manages an enziguri to start his comeback and follows up with a missile dropkick and a superkick to set up the Red Arrow.
Rusev rolls to the floor to avoid however, so Neville hits him with a moonsault to the outside instead, before rolling Rusev back into the ring for a second bite at the Red Arrow apple. This is Lana’s cue to climb the ringsteps and point at Neville, which is apparently enough of a distraction to cause him to hesitate and allow Rusev to recover. Rusev slams Neville off the top, before hitting the kick to the head and locking on the Accolade for the submission finish.
Pretty boring heel offence from Rusev here. The match was briefly enlivened by the moonsault highspot, only for it to eventually fall victim to the dumbest of dumb distraction finishes.
Post-match, Rusev shows exactly why he’s so awesome by ad-libbing a fantastically furious reaction to his flag failing to unfurl properly from the ceiling. He grabs his own handheld version and waves it furiously, before handing it off to Lana and cussing out the WWE staff at ringside in Bulgarian instead. Fantastic stuff.
Jack Swagger def. Bo Dallas by submission (12:08)
Alas, Vince McMahon did not appear to call a premature end to this clash of the titans. Bo shows off his jiggle with an early victory lap, before Swagger takes control leading into the break with a vicious running clothesline on the outside.
Swagger is still dominant when we return, only for Bo to kick off his heat with a double sledge off the ropes. Dallas then continues his gimmick of shouting “BOLIEVE!” while applying restholds. One too many Bolieves allows Swagger to recover and shoot for an anklelock, which Bo escapes, only to eat yet another running clothesline.
Bo gets the knees up off a Swagger Bomb attempt, but gets thrown to the outside, where he trips Swagger on the apron and throws him into the steps for a close nine-count. Bo signals for the Bodog, but Swagger reverses it into the Patriot Lock for the submission, to put a merciful end to this disjointed and dull affair.
– We get our obligatory RAW recap, focusing on Roman Reigns’ one-night ascension to the top of the company. Worth noting that they did not show the Brogue Kick kick-out here, but did show the post-match celebrations with the Usos and Dean Ambrose. Still no explanation as to where those guys were on Sunday night, though.
The Usos def. The Ascension by pinfall (5:55)
Jimmy gets the shine on Konnor to start us off, before tagging in Jey – your babyface-in-peril for the evening – who immediately gets caught with a flapjack to start the heat. Viktor tags in and hits an excellent looking STO to Jey on the outside. He applies a headlock inside the ring, before neatly swatting away an attempted dropkick from the Uso. A damn crisp worker is our Viktor.
Konnor comes in and ruins everything by eating a Jey elbow off an attempted corner charge. Enziguri from Jey leads to the hot tag to brother Jimmy, who runs wild on Viktor – hitting him with the usual Samoan Drop and corner hip attack combo.
Double superkicks to both Konnor and Viktor follow, before Jimmy hits the Superfly Splash on the latter for the pinfall victory. Short, by-the-numbers and perfectly acceptable tag match, highlighted by Viktor’s contribution.
Final Thoughts
A pretty bleh show this week, highlighted by Rusev’s ability to think on his feet and react to the overhead flag malfunction. As for the actual wrestling, there’s not much to recommend here. An eminently skippable outing for Main Event, I’m afraid.
TNA will be starting earlier than expected on POP TV with its debut show coming out this Tuesday night from 9-11 p.m — the company’s regular time slot on the station.
TNA finished its Destination America run on Wednesday night, and it was originally believed that the company would not have television until their originally scheduled debut show on Tuesday, January 5th. Instead, POP TV will be picking up with the final two episodes of Impact for 2015, airing on Tuesday, December 22nd, and Tuesday, December 29th, both of which will be “Best of 2015” type shows. This week, their first hour will go head-to-head with a live Smackdown.
The 1/5 “live” show from Bethlehem, PA, will feature the semifinals and finals of the TNA title tournament that has come down to Bobby Lashley, Eric Young, Matt Hardy and Ethan Carter III. The company is saying it’s a live show, but in the past, that has meant taping two hours before and airing it the same night.
