WWE News: Buddy Murphy Taking Hiatus From TV, Raw Viewership Hits New High, Steve Austin On KO Using The Stunner

buddy murphy

WWE Cruiserweight Champion Buddy Murphy has announced on social media that he will be taking a “well deserved vacation”, and subsequently will be off WWE TV for the next several weeks.

“I would like to officially announce that I will not be on 205 Live for the foreseeable future,” Murphy announced on Twitter.

WWE News: Buddy Murphy Taking Hiatus From TV, Raw Viewership Hits New High, Steve Austin On KO Using The Stunner
Photo: YouTube

It appears as if right now might be a good time for Murphy to take a break from action, as 205 Live just announced the “Buddy Murphy Classic” to determine who will next challenge the Champion for his Cruiserweight Title. Murphy’s return to TV has yet to be announced, and it’s worth noting he will not be vacating the Title while on vacation.

Raw Viewership Hits Another New High

As noted, viewership for last week’s episodes of Raw and Smackdown Live, which followed the Elimination Chamber PPV, saw both brands bring in the highest amount of viewers for their respective shows so far in 2019.

According to ShowBuzz Daily, this week’s episode of Smackdown saw a decrease in viewership from last week, despite the surprise return of Kevin Owens. This week’s show averaged 2.150 million viewers, which is down from last week’s 2.269 million viewership average.

[lawrence-related id=882864]

Raw, on the other hand, took in the highest amount of viewers since the post-SummerSlam episode of the show back in 2018, averaging 2.922 million viewers for a show which featured the advertised return of Roman Reigns.

The first hour of Raw this week actually took in over 3 million viewers for the second straight week, averaging 3.167 million.

Steve Austin On Kevin Owens Using The Stunner

As noted, following his return to television, Kevin Owens will now be using the Stone Cold Stunner as his finishing move going forward. It’s worth noting that Owens will not be dropping the pop-up power bomb, but will be adding the Stunner to his offense as WWE feels it will help KO get over more as a babyface since the move is tied to legendary WWE babyface Steve Austin.

The Texas Rattlesnake actually commented on Kevin Owens using The Stunner, as seen in the Tweet below.

It looks like Austin is a fan of the former Universal Champion using his signature finishing move, and Kevin Owens has noted in the past that he has had discussions with Austin about using the move, and Austin has always given his blessing.

Arrow to top