Ringside
AEW EARNED THE first victory in its growing rivalry with WWE, as AEW Dynamite on TNT beat WWE’s NXT on USA when the shows went head-to-head on October 2 in the same 8 to 10 p.m. timeslot. The score? 1,410,000 viewers to 870,000 viewers. It was the first time that NXT had dropped below one million since its September 18 premiere.
WWE lost the battle, but tried to maintain the narrative by issuing a press release only a couple of hours before the ratings were released to the general public. “Congratulations to AEW on a successful premiere. The real winners of last night’s head-to-head telecasts of NXT on USA Network and AEW on TNT are the fans, who can expect Wednesday nights to be a competitive and wild ride, as this is a marathon, not a one-night sprint.”
The real message is that AEW put on, arguably, the best show it could, while WWE has countless tricks it can utilize, from, say, having the WWE champion defend against the NXT champion, to simply dropping in a WWE superstar to shake things up on NXT, even if it’s for one night only.
On October 2, it could be said that matches were just as good—if. NXT champion vs. played out simultaneously with vs. at 8 p.m., plus there was NXT Women’s title victory over and and tag team title defense against —all terrific matches. The tag match spilled over into a seven-minute overrun. main event—AEW champion , , and vs. and —was introduced as “one fall, TV time remaining.”
