So it's October 13th, and as of today, we've been two full broadcast weeks into the Wednesday Night Wars between NXT and AEW, and if ratings are the true litmus test of which company has the superior product, it's absolutely A-E-Dub all the way so far.
AEW: Dynamite was the winner in the ratings over NXT in the first two weeks despite NXT putting on a TakeOver-worthy show in its first head-to-head week and AEW coming out of the gate already looking better (from a booking and creative standpoint) than WWE main roster shows but still being somewhat less than stellar in its premiere. And in Week Two, Dynamite was still holding somewhat strong, despite having a totally expected drop from Week One, still stood tall while NXT's ratings slipped even further. Some attribute the drops to some MLB playoff games on Wednesday night, but it's starting to look bad for NXT from a ratings perspective, as they're getting sizable drop-offs in the key 18-49 demographic.
If you think of NXT at part of a giant three-headed monster (the other two heads being Raw and Smackdown) and AEW as a old-school with new blood monster, then this is a good visual representation of what AEW has been doing to NXT for the last two weeks:
I'm a mark for Godzilla films; what can I say?
So being on a much bigger and more sports-themed network can actually help a sports entertainment show get better ratings? Who knew? But you know what also helps? Actually putting on a good product, and that's why NXT is suffering, but not for the reason that sentence implies.
Just take a peek around Wrestling Twitter. Or Wrestling Columns on the Internet. Or YouTube Wrestling. Or Wrestling Podcasts. Everyone, and I mean, everyone is shitting on WWE. The main reason the premiere of Fox's Friday Night Smackdown got such huge ratings is because they had The Rock in the initial promo. That garnered the show 4 million viewers alone for the opening, with an aggregate of 3.9 million viewers, which is to be expected when you have The Rock. But after the double-helping shit sandwich that WWE force-fed us with Kofi Kingston getting done dirtier than any super-over champ in recent memory by dropping the WWE Championship title to Brock Fucking Lesnar in a squash so fast that the match traveled back in time and then the absolute migraine-inducing travesty of The Fiend vs Seth Rollins at the Hell in a Cell PPV, is it any fucking wonder that all WWE products are suffering, no matter the level of quality? I would say that, overall, the last two weeks of NXT are better than the last seven months of main roster programming, but that's not going to matter to the average viewer who is rapidly tuning out of WWE. This was a fear that I had expressed in my previous column (here's a link if you're lazy), and it appears that it might be coming true.
Just the match between WALTER and KUSHIDA was better than just about anything on wrestling TV last week, with the exception of the match between The Young Bucks and Private Party and that was more of a spot fest combined with Matt and Nick working their asses off putting over the younger talent than honest-to-goodness storytelling (which is something that WALTER vs KUSHIDA had in spades).
But let's take a look at WWE as a whole right now. Even some of their most ardent supporters are starting to see between the cracks and find that their programming flat-out sucks ass right now. They've brought in another legit MMA star in Cain Velasquez to fight Brock Lesnar, but that looks like that's going to begin at their fucking Saudi show, Crown Jewel. And they've brought over this Tyson Fury guy from the boxing world in order to give Braun Strowman something to do to keep him out of the title picture. And they're having a draft that they've decided to present in the most boring way ever, which is one of the many reasons that the second episode of Friday Night Smackdown had nearly a 25% drop in viewers. The match quality and workrate on a weekly basis is generally garbage with only a few standouts. And they keep putting these fucking goddamn dogshit Saudi shows between major PPVs so the momentum on any story they want to tell is going to be fucked. The focus that WWE had last year on the Women's division is only being paid lip service right now when all the big stories are focused on the Four Horsewomen now. The Women's tag belts, once seemingly held in esteem, are now somewhere between being a total joke to nonexistent. We had Evolution last year! It was an all-female PPV and it was one of the best PPVs of the year! Now they can't seem to book anything, and it gets worse since Sasha Banks is apparently injured and may be out of action for an indeterminate amount of time. I'm hoping it's nothing serious that will keep her sidelined for long because her match with Becky at HIAC was absolute fire, even if it ended with Becky retaining because Vince can't book Becky as the biggest thing in WWE right now unless she has a belt to defend. Asuka was once the most dominant force in the Women's division, and after a very long unexplained absence, she and the most white-meat babyface you could possibly think of in Kairi Sane have inexplicably turned heel and now have the Women's tag titles as the "Kabuki Warriors".
This isn't even bringing up the joke of a tag division, the garbage fire that Vince turned the Seth/Bray feud into, or the failure to push their younger talent. Ricochet and Aleister Black were mega-over during Wrestlemania season, and now, Black is beating up the Singhs and Ricochet is having 4 minute matches on Raw while Lacey Fucking Evans and Baron Fucking Corbin are features of the show. Hell, they were on their way towards making Kevin Owens a super-over babyface and they fucked that up too. What Vince has to start understanding is that no matter what he throws at the general public, they can only stand something bad for so long before it's not even fun to watch the trainwreck any more. According to all accounts, during the main event of HIAC, Vince was sitting in gorilla laughing his ass off at how pissed off people were. And you know what? He's got every right to laugh. As much as so many fans chant "CM Punk" and "AEW" at live shows when it's just shit, he knows he's still getting our money and our attention, and he's laughing all the way to the bank each and every week. Honest to God, I wouldn't be watching any main roster shit right now if The Manager wasn't watching it.
Meanwhile, over on Dynamite, this week began with the amazing match between Private Party and The Young Bucks. Later, Chris Jericho would come out with Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz, and Jake Hager (formerly Jack Swagger) and cut a pipebomb-esque promo that not only put himself and all of the fellow members of his heel faction (now known as The Inner Circle, who are basically the Anti-Elite) over, but also shot across the bow of WWE Creative. Jericho is the fucking GOAT. Of the last 4 years of wrestling I've watched on a weekly basis, I can honestly say that the one "legend" of the business who has always been on point and who has always been striving for something different is Jericho. I firmly believe that he's likely the greatest wrestler ever. And then there was Jericho and Guevara vs Hangman Page and Dustin Rhodes and holy fucking hell, Dustin looks better than I have ever seen him. I never saw a showing as good as that in his last few years in WWE, and he didn't even look that great when he tagged with Cody at Fight for the Fallen, but he just looked fantastic. The match between Jimmy Havoc and Darby Allin for a #1 Contender spot was great, and as if he heard our thoughts in the universe, PAC (it's pronounced "pack", JR, not "pock") came out and joined commentary during a so-so match between Shawn Spears and Jon Moxley, wondering why he wasn't being given a #1 Contender spot when he's beaten both Kenny Omega and Adam Page, both of whom were #1 contenders! The show ended for the second week in a row with another burly brawl between the top babyfaces and the top heels, but this time with Darby Allin coming down the entrance ramp on a fucking skateboard and kneed Jericho in the face and it was awesome.
Oh, and before I forget, Orange Cassidy is a blessing and we should thank the wrestling gods every day that he's on our TV's. Fuck the haters. If you're one of them, you can just go ahead and stop reading right now.
Really the only issues I'm having right now with AEW is their Women's division. I think that a lot of these competitors came in with a lot of over-hype, but are really more akin to strong developmental performers rather than legit breakout stars. They need a Becky or a Charlotte or even an Io or a Shayna to really anchor that division. I don't think any of them are by any means bad. I think that you put any of them against most of the main roster talent and a good portion of the developmental talent in WWE, and they're going to have strong showings. It's just that none of them seem to really be stand-outs yet apart from Riho and Nyla Rose. I just want them to take as much time and care with their own women's division as they do with the men as far as the booking is concerned. If for no other reason, it'll really help them stand even further apart from WWE's booking and overall treatment of their own women's roster.
NXT is still firing on pretty much all cylinders, kicking things off last week with a great match between Lio Rush and champ Drew Gulak for the now NXT-centric Cruiserweight title where Rush took the strap. A: it's a strong move to put the 205'ers on NXT. That could make for some really good matches. B: also put Ali, Buddy Murphy and Cedric Alexander down on NXT as well. Shit, get Buddy over to NXT UK instead and put him up against WALTER. Because they're sure as hell not going to do anything with any of those guys right now. And there was Rhea Ripley's straight-up assassination of Aliyah. I'm putting this out there into the universe: please give Rhea an extended stay on NXT and give her the Women's title and then give me a title match between her an Io Shirai. It would be my Metal Queen vs my Murder Queen and I would love the fuck out of it. And holy shit, the match between Roddy Strong and Isaiah "Swerve" Scott was awesome. I know a lot of people have been downplaying how fantastic Strong is as a competitor, but he's just incredible, and he put Scott over even in defeat and that's literally what any quality performer should do when they're with another quality performer. Speaking of which, why does Cameron Grimes keep one-move getting squash matches? Selling his double-stomp finisher is fine, but we've already had one match where he wins by hitting his finisher right off the bat. And where the hell is Jordan Myles? I doubt he's hit his ceiling, and I don't see any indication of him being hurt.
Do I need to tell you how over the fucking moon I am about Finn coming back home full-time? No? Good. Because I am. Like, really a lot. I love him. I'm honestly very curious about who his first match back will be against.
Do I have to tell you how over the fucking moon I am about Ciampa being healthy again and how he's going to kill Angel Garza next episode after almost killing him last week? No? Good. Because I love him lots too. Hell, at War Games, have Finn, Johnny, and Riddle vs The Undisputed Era vs Ciampa, Dijakovic and Dane.
Look, NXT and AEW going head-to-head was... I hesitate to call it a mistake, but it maybe wasn't as well-planned or well-thought-out as it should have been on WWE's end, and of course it's all Vince's fault because this is a man who will most definitely cut off his nose to spite his face. AEW was always going to be the stronger of the two at the beginning, and that's definitely been the case in these first two weeks. Since they're looking at bringing NXT out of Full Sail and into the rest of the world sometime before the end of the year, I think that it might start doing better because the optics of having a full arena of fans on AEW and only a few hundred (no matter how highly-invested) fans at Full Sail... well, if it was my very first time watching wrestling, I'd definitely think that AEW was the bigger brand, so the decision to move it on the road and out of Full Sail is because of optics more than anything.
Both brands are trying to reach a lot of people and both brands have a long way to go, but right now, Dynamite is Godzilla and NXT is Tokyo.
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