AEW New Year's Smash is an annual professional wrestling television special produced by the American promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Established in 2021, the event is held around New Year's. The original January 2021 event aired as two back-to-back special episodes of AEW's flagship program, Wednesday Night Dynamite. The second event, which aired in December 2021, took place in the same week, first as an episode of Dynamite, then as a special episode of Friday Night Rampage, with the events in 2022 and 2023 retaining this format. The 2024 event featured only Rampage due to Dynamite airing as a different special that week.
The Dynamite broadcast for the December 2021 event was the final Dynamite to air on TNT before the show moved to TNT's sister channel TBS; Rampage remained on TNT. The 2024 event was the final episode of Rampage due to the program's cancellation.
History On the December 9, 2020, episode of Wednesday Night Dynamite, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) announced that the December 30, 2020, and January 6, 2021, episodes would be a two-part event titled "New Year's Smash". However, on December 28, it was announced that the event had been postponed to January 6 and 13, 2021, due to the death of AEW wrestler Brodie Lee, with the December 30 episode instead being held as a memorial event for Lee. Night 1 of New Year's Smash aired live on January 6, while Night 2 was taped on January 7 and aired on tape delay on January 13.
On the November 19, 2021, episode of AEW's secondary program, Friday Night Rampage (which began airing in August), AEW announced New Year's Smash would return as the December 29 episode of Dynamite (the final episode of Dynamite on TNT before its move to TBS) and the New Year's Eve episode of Rampage. Dynamite aired live while Rampage aired on tape delay on December 31. This in turn established New Year's Smash as AEW's New Year's event, with the 2022 and 2023 events retaining the Dynamite and Rampage broadcast format. The 2024 event reduced it to just Rampage due to Dynamite airing as a different special that week. It was also the final episode of Rampage as the program was not included in AEW's media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery that took effect on January 1, 2025.
Events #EventDateCityVenueMain eventRef.1New Year's Smash (January 2021)Night 1:DynamiteJanuary 6, 2021Jacksonville, FloridaDaily's PlaceKenny Omega (c) vs. Rey Fénix for the AEW World ChampionshipNight 2:DynamiteJanuary 7, 2021Darby Allin (c) vs. Brian Cage for the AEW TNT Championship2New Year's Smash (December 2021)Night 1:DynamiteDecember 29, 2021Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, and Kyle O'Reilly vs. Best Friends (Orange Cassidy, Chuck Taylor, and Trent Beretta)Night 2:RampageDecember 29, 2021Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Ethan Page for the AEW TNT Championship3New Year's Smash (2022)Night 1:DynamiteDecember 28, 20221stBank Center Broomfield, ColoradoSamoa Joe (c) vs. Wardlow for the AEW TNT ChampionshipNight 2:RampageDecember 28, 2022Swerve Strickland vs. Wheeler Yuta4New Year's Smash (2023)Night 1:DynamiteDecember 27, 2023Addition Financial Arena Orlando, FloridaMJF (c) vs The Devil's Masked Men in a 2-on-1 Handicap match for the ROH World Tag Team ChampionshipNight 2:RampageDecember 27, 2023Orange Cassidy, Trent Beretta, and Rocky Romero vs. Top Flight (Darius Martin and Dante Martin) and Action Andretti5New Year's Smash (2024)RampageDecember 22, 2024Hammerstein BallroomNew York City, New YorkHook vs. Nick Wayne6New Year's Smash (2025)DynamiteDecember 31, 2025Liberty First Credit Union ArenaOmaha, NebraskaMercedes Moné (c) vs. Willow Nightingale for the AEW TBS Championship
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See also List of AEW Dynamite special episodes List of AEW Rampage special episodes List of All Elite Wrestling pay-per-view events List of All Elite Wrestling special events
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