WWE Superstars

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For the original show called Superstars, see WWF Superstars of Wrestling. For professional wrestlers employed by WWE, referred to by the company as "WWE Superstars", see List of WWE personnel.
WWE Superstars
WWESuperstarsNew.jpg
WWE Superstars logo
Format Sports entertainment
Professional wrestling
Created by Vince McMahon
Starring WWE roster
Opening theme "Invincible" by Adelitas Way[1]
Country of origin United States
No. of seasons 3[2]
No. of episodes 150 (as of February 23, 2012)
Production
Running time 60 minutes (including commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel WGN America (April 16, 2009–April 7, 2011)
Webcast (April 14, 2011–September 15, 2011, October 6, 2011–present)
Internationally Syndicated (April 16, 2009–present)
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)
Original run April 16, 2009 – present
Chronology
Related shows WWE Raw
WWE NXT
WWE SmackDown
WWE Vintage Collection
External links
Website

WWE Superstars is a professional wrestling television program produced by WWE that originally aired on WGN America in the United States. It debuted on April 16, 2009 and ended its domestic broadcasting on April 7, 2011. After the final domestic TV broadcast the show moved to an internet broadcast format while maintaining a traditional television broadcast in international markets. The show features WWE talent from both of the current brands: Raw and SmackDown. The show also previously featured talent from the now-defunct ECW brand.[3]

Contents

[edit] 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 features stars from all the WWE brands. 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.[4] A replay airs at noon on Sunday on 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.[5] Superstars had its debut show on April 16, 2009.[6]

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.

[edit] Production

WWE Superstar's version of the universal WWE HD set used from April 16, 2009 - present

The theme song for WWE Superstars is "Invincible" by Adelitas Way.[1] WWE Superstars currently uses the same universal WWE entrance set that is also currently used for WWE's other primary television programs Raw, and SmackDown as well as their secondary show that also airs on the internet for American visitors, WWE NXT.[7][8][9] Although WWE promotes the series as a television program that takes place during one night, in reality, the matches that are set for the event are taped earlier than the broadcast day. These matches are taped during the Raw and SmackDown events on Mondays and Tuesdays, respectively, and are then aired Thursdays during Superstars.[10] As a result, the show features 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 is wrestling. The colors of the ring ropes are blue for SmackDown, white (Formerly red) for Raw and were grey during the matches of the now defunct ECW brand.[11]

[edit] 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 — present
Josh Mathews and Matt Striker November 10, 2011
SmackDown brand
Todd Grisham and Jim Ross April 16, 2009 — October 29, 2009
Todd Grisham and Matt Striker November 5, 2009 — December 2, 2010
Jack Korpela and Matt Striker 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 — present
ECW brand
Josh Mathews and Matt Striker April 16, 2009 — October 22, 2009
Josh Mathews and Byron Saxton October 27, 2009 — February 11, 2010
Spanish Broadcasters
Carlos Cabrera, Hugo Savinovich and Marcelo Rodríguez April 16, 2009 — October 6, 2011
Carlos Cabrera, Marcelo Rodríguez and Jerry Soto October 13, 2011 — present
Dual Branded
Josh Mathews and Matt Striker (substitute)* April 16, 2009 — present

(*) If any Superstars commentators are unable to call the action for their respective brands, The alternate team of Josh Mathews and Matt Striker will serve as a dual-branded announce team. Mathews, who works color commentary opposite Stanford for the Raw portion will serve as play-by-play commentator and Striker will serve his usual duties on color commentary as he would normally do when working opposite Korpela (whose regular place on SmackDown has been taken by Matthews since his release). The Mathews/Striker tandem are the only announce team to call Superstars for all brands Raw, Smackdown and the former ECW brand since the show's inception in April 2009.

[edit] 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 — present
SmackDown brand
Justin Roberts April 16, 2009 — September 24, 2009
Tony Chimel October 1, 2009 — May 5, 2011
July 21, 2011
December 29, 2011 — present
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
Dual-branded
Ashley Valence November 25, 2010 — December 9, 2010
Justin Roberts March 10, 2011
Eden Stiles May 12, 2011 — December 22, 2011

[edit] United Kingdom & Ireland Television Timeslots

  • Sky 1 - Friday Afternoons (2009-2010)
  • Sky 1 - Saturday Mornings (2011-Present)

[edit] International broadcasters

In addition to being broadcast in the United States on WWE.com, WWE Superstars is also broadcast internationally.

Country Network Ref
Arab World AD Sport 6 HD [12]
Australia Fox8 [13][14]
Bulgaria RING.BG [15][16]
France RTL9 [17][18]
Dominican Republic Antena Latina
India Ten Sports [19][20]
Italy Sky Sport 2 [21][22]
Japan J SPORTS [23]
Malaysia Astro Super Sport [24]
Mexico MVS (52MX y MC) [25]
Philippines Studio 23, Balls [26]
Panama RPC Canal 4 [27]
Poland TV Puls [28]
Peru Frecuencia Latina [29]
Romania Sport.ro [30]
Singapore SuperSports Plus [31][32]
South Africa e.tv [33][34]
United Kingdom & Ireland Sky1, Sky Sports 3 [35]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Adelitas Way is the Official song for WWE Superstars! check out our first single Invincible". MySpace. 2009-04-17. http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=407062371&blogId=483699350. Retrieved 2009-04-17. 
  2. ^ "WWE Superstars". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/show/wwesuperstars. Retrieved 2010-06-24. 
  3. ^ "WWE Superstars official website". World Wrestling Entertainment. http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwesuperstars. Retrieved April 14, 2009. 
  4. ^ "WWE Television Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/?cid=2009NEWTOPNAV-00. Retrieved April 18, 2009. 
  5. ^ "WGN America enters WWE ring with "WWE Superstars"". World Wrestling Entertainment. 2009-01-05. http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/wgnamericaenterwwering. Retrieved 2009-04-14. 
  6. ^ Mackinder, Matt. "WWE Superstars: Debut show a dud". SLAM! Sports - Wrestling. Canadian Online Explorer. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2009/04/16/9132521.html. Retrieved 2009-04-18. 
  7. ^ "WWE Goes HD". WWE. http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2008/2008_01_14.jsp. Retrieved 2008-01-15. 
  8. ^ WWE: Mediaplayer > WWE goes high-definition with an all new set
  9. ^ Martin, Adam. "Spoilers: Superstars taping for 4/16". WrestleView.com. http://www.wrestleview.com/news2009/1239768490.php. Retrieved 2009-04-17. 
  10. ^ Caldwell, James (2009-04-16). "Caldwell's WWE Superstars Report 4/16: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of debut edition on WGN". PW Torch. http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/TV_Reports_9/article_31447.shtml. Retrieved 2009-06-26. 
  11. ^ Ross, Jim (2009-04-15). "Draft Thoughts...Another Von Erich to Enter the Ring??...Steamboat to put tights back on?? WGN..". J.R.'s Family Bar-B-Q. http://www.jrsbarbq.com/blog/draft-thoughtsanother-von-erich-enter-ringsteamboat-put-tights-back-wgn. Retrieved 2009-04-18. "All three brands will be featured weekly and each brand's announcers will call their respective bouts." 
  12. ^ http://www2.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/UAE
  13. ^ "FOX8 Scheduling". FOX8. http://www.fox8.foxtel.com.au/Guide/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-07. [dead link]
  14. ^ "WWE's Australia Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/Australia. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  15. ^ "Bulgarian TV Guide" (in Bulgarian). TV Guide. http://www.tvguide.bg/. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  16. ^ "WWE's Bulgaria Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/Bulgaria. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  17. ^ "WWE's France Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/France. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  18. ^ "WWE Superstars on the RTL9 Website". RTL9. http://www.rtl9.com/guide-programmes/sport-catch-superstars-193.aspx. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  19. ^ "WWE's India Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/India. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  20. ^ "Ten Sports India Schedule". Ten Sports. http://www.tensports.com/tvschedule/?c=1011. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  21. ^ "WWE's Italy Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/Italy. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  22. ^ "WWE Superstars SKY Italia schedule" (in Italian). http://guidatv.sky.it/guidatv/programma/sport/wrestling/wwe-superstars_76182.shtml. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  23. ^ http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2011/2011_02_02.jsp
  24. ^ "WWE's Malaysia Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/Malaysia. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  25. ^ "WWE Superstars en Mexico". Superluchas. http://superluchas.net/2010/08/03/wwe-superstars-en-mexico-a-partir-del-6-de-agosto/. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  26. ^ http://www.studio23.tv
  27. ^ http://www.rpctv.com/
  28. ^ "WWE's Poland Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/Poland. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  29. ^ "WWE's Poland Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/Poland. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  30. ^ "WWE's Romania Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/Romania. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  31. ^ "WWE's South Africa Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/South%20Africa. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  32. ^ "WWE Superstars on e.tv". e.tv. http://www.etv.co.za/extended/index/wwe_superstars/. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  33. ^ "WWE's South Africa Schedule". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/South%20Africa. Retrieved 2009-10-07. 
  34. ^ "WWE Superstars on e.tv". e.tv. http://www.etv.co.za/extended/index/wwe_superstars/. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  35. ^ "Sky agrees new five-year WWE deal". Digital Spy. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/news/a189270/sky-agrees-new-five-year-wwe-deal.html. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 

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