NXT stacked the deck for their head-to-head battle against AEW and it has paid off in big viewership numbers.
AEW Dynamite found itself on Tuesday this week due to MLB Playoffs and in turn, up against NXT like Dynamite’s early days. AEW initially “won” the Wednesday night wars against the black and gold brand, but now the NXT product has been building momentum over the past several weeks, incorporating main roster stars on a weekly basis.
This week, NXT went “all out” with their show, getting major names such as John Cena, Paul Heyman, Cody Rhodes and The Undertaker to appear and AEW Dynamite had a big show planned as well which included Adam Copeland’s in-ring debut for the company.
Inside The Ropes received viewership numbers from WWE and they reflect very well for the company and not so well for AEW.
NXT blew AEW out of the water in both total viewership and also edged AEW out in key demographics. NXT had 921,000 total viewers on average against AEW’s 609,000 – a 34% difference. Total viewership was up by 7% for NXT from the week previous (857,000) while total viewership for AEW was down by 24% (800,000).
As for the key demographic, NXT was watched by 396,000 average viewers aged 18-49 in comparison to AEW’s 346,000 – a 13% difference.
The Social Media Build For AEW vs. NXT Got Heated
The hype for Tuesday night got quite contentious after WWE announced the major names scheduled to take place on the show. Tony Khan went basically scorched earth against WWE, taking shots at Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Vince McMahon as he made a flurry of posts on X promoting Dynamite.
In a social media update on October 12th, Tony Khan broke his silence on the results of the head-to-head, claiming a bizarre victory over the competition.
This week, 2 active decades-long ratings streaks from 2 great legends were ended With all due respect, until this week’s head-to-head AEW on TBS vs WWE on USA, neither John Cena nor Undertaker had ever been on a WWE show with under 1 million total viewers + under 400k in the demo