WWE Superstars was a professional wrestling television program for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) that originally aired on WGN America in the United States. It debuted on April 16, 2009 and the final WGN America televised episode aired on April 7, 2011. The show then shifted to WWE.com from April 14, 2011 until February 28, 2014. After the launch of the WWE Network the show shifted from WWE.com to the network on March 7, 2014. The final episode would air on November 25, 2016, with the show then being replaced by 205 Live just 4 days later.
Show history[]
On December 19, 2008, WWE and WGN America announced an agreement to create a new weekly, one-hour prime time series entitled WWE Superstars that was to debut in April 2009. The show featured stars from all three of WWE's brands at the time (Raw, SmackDown, and ECW). In early 2009, WGN put out a press release hyping the revived series and revealed its new time slot for its debut. Superstars airs Thursday nights at 8:00 pm Eastern/7:00 pm Central. A replay airs at noon on Sunday WGN America. Until early 2010 the replay also aired on WGN-TV. However, it was removed, hence eliminating distribution of the show from the Canadian fanbase. Superstars had its debut show on April 16, 2009.
On March 17, 2011, WGN America announced that they would not renew their domestic broadcasts rights to WWE Superstars and the last episode they would air would be shown on April 7, 2011. Online reports stated that the network did not renew the series because it didn't live up to its expectations. WWE.com aired the show from April 14, 2011 until September 22, 2011 when it was removed from the website due to low viewing returns. The show is still in production for international broadcasting. However, it was announced on October 5, 2011 on Twitter by WWE Superstars commentator Scott Stanford that WWE Superstars will return to WWE.com beginning October 6, 2011 and will air Thursdays 4:00 pm Eastern/3:00 pm Central/1:00 pm Pacific with WWE NXT also having moved to a new day and time Wednesdays at 4:00 pm Eastern/3:00 pm Central/1:00 pm Pacific.
Production[]
The theme song for WWE Superstars was "New Day Coming" by CFO$ featuring Todd Clark, which replaced "Invincible" by Adelitas Way on May 17, 2013. WWE Superstars used the same universal WWE entrance set that has been used for WWE's primary television programs Raw, ECW, and SmackDown, since January 2008. Although WWE promoted the series as a television program that took place during one night, in reality, the matches that are set for the event are taped earlier than the broadcast day. These matches were taped during the Raw, ECW, and SmackDown recordings on Mondays and Tuesdays, respectively, and are then aired Thursdays during Superstars. As a result, the show featured brand-specific commentary throughout the show, as each brand's respective commentators announce the match for their particular show. Also the colors of the ropes change depending on the brand that was wrestling. The colors of the ring ropes were blue for SmackDown, white for Raw and were grey during the matches of the now defunct ECW brand. After the first brand extension ended, the unique rope colors would be discontinued; all broadcasts from then until the July 22, 2016 episode would feature white ropes. From July 29, 2016 until the show was cancelled, the ropes were changed back to red to show that WWE Superstars was exclusive to the Raw brand.
Commentators[]
Commentators | Dates |
---|---|
Raw brand | |
Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler | April 16, 2009 — October 26, 2010 |
Scott Stanford and Jerry Lawler | October 7, 2010 October 28, 2010 — November 11, 2010 November 25, 2010 December 23, 2010 |
Michael Cole and Josh Mathews | November 11, 2010 |
Scott Stanford and CM Punk | November 18, 2010 December 2, 2010 — December 16, 2010 |
Scott Stanford and Josh Mathews | December 30, 2010 — October 25, 2012 |
Josh Mathews and Matt Striker | November 10, 2011 |
Scott Stanford and Matt Striker | March 29, 2012 April 26, 2012 - May 3, 2012 |
Tom Phillips and Corey Graves | July 29, 2016 – November 25, 2016 |
Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton | September 2, 2016 |
SmackDown brand | |
Todd Grisham and Jim Ross | April 16, 2009 — October 29, 2009 |
Todd Grisham and Matt Striker | November 5, 2009 — December 2, 2010 |
Matt Striker and Jack Korpela | December 9, 2010 — May 26, 2011 June 9, 2011 — November 3, 2011 |
Jack Korpela and Booker T | June 2, 2011 |
Josh Mathews and Matt Striker | November 10, 2011 — October 25, 2012 |
Michael Cole and Matt Striker | April 26, 2012 |
ECW brand | |
Josh Mathews and Matt Striker | April 16, 2009 — October 22, 2009 |
Josh Mathews and Byron Saxton | October 27, 2009 — February 11, 2010 |
Full roster | |
Scott Stanford and Matt Striker | August 23, 2012 November 2, 2012 - January 11, 2013 |
Tony Dawson and Matt Striker | January 18, 2013 - June 21, 2013 |
Tony Dawson and Alex Riley | June 28, 2013 - September 20, 2013 |
Josh Mathews and Tom Phillips | September 27, 2013 |
Josh Mathews and Alex Riley | November 15, 2013 |
Tom Phillips and Alex Riley | October 4, 2013 – January 24, 2014 |
Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton | January 31, 2014 – June 26, 2014 January 16, 2015 – January 23, 2015 May 6, 2016 – June 10, 2016 |
Tom Phillips and Renee Young | July 3, 2014 – January 9, 2015 |
Tom Phillips | January 30, 2015 |
Rich Brennan and Byron Saxton | February 6, 2015 – March 27, 2015 April 24, 2015 – May 29, 2015 October 23, 2015 – April 29, 2016 |
Rich Brennan and Tom Phillips | April 3, 2015 - April 10, 2015 |
Michael Cole and Byron Saxton | April 17, 2015 |
Rich Brennan, Byron Saxton and Jimmy Uso | June 5, 2015 – August 21, 2015 |
Rich Brennan and Xavier Woods | August 28, 2015 – October 16, 2015 |
Kyle Edwards | December 25, 2015 |
Rich Brennan and The Miz | January 8, 2016 |
Tom Phillips, Dolph Ziggler and David Otunga | June 17, 2016 July 1, 2016 July 22, 2016 |
Tom Phillips and David Otunga | June 24, 2016 – July 15, 2016 |
Ring announcers[]
Ring announcer | Dates | |
---|---|---|
Raw brand | ||
Lilian Garcia | April 16, 2009 — September 24, 2009 | |
Justin Roberts | October 1, 2009 — May 5, 2011 July 14–21, 2011 November 10, 2011 December 29, 2011 — October 25, 2012 | |
JoJo | July 29, 2016 — November 25, 2016 | |
SmackDown brand | ||
Justin Roberts | April 16, 2009 — September 24, 2009 | |
Tony Chimel | October 1, 2009 — May 5, 2011 July 21, 2011 December 29, 2011 — October 25, 2012 | |
Savannah | May 6, 2010 — June 17, 2010 | |
Jamie Keyes | August 12, 2010 — August 31, 2010 | |
Eden Stiles | July 14, 2011 November 10, 2011 | |
ECW brand | ||
Tony Chimel | April 30, 2009 — September 24, 2009 | |
Lauren Mayhew | October 8, 2009 — November 19, 2009 | |
Savannah | December 17, 2009 — February 11, 2010 | |
Full Roster | ||
Ashley Valence | November 25, 2010 — December 9, 2010 | |
Justin Roberts | March 10, 2011 2014 | |
Eden Stiles | May 12, 2011 — December 22, 2011 January 9, 2015 April 17, 2015 — May 29, 2015 October 16, 2015 November 6, 2015 | |
Tony Chimel | November 2, 2012 – 2014 January 1, 2016 | |
Lilian Garcia | October 23, 2014 - February 26, 2016 | |
Greg Hamilton | March 4, 2016 – July 22, 2016 |