It has been confirmed that as of September 18th, NXT will be moving to the USA Network and it will air live from Full Sail University every week. This is huge news for several reasons, firstly this could signify and begin the Wednesday Night Wars, between the aforementioned NXT and the newly formed AEW which begins on Wednesday 2nd October at the same time slot of 8 pm EST.
There are some questions that need to be asked, one being how will international viewers watch NXT live and legally, despite it being a taped show, UK fans can watch NXT at the same time as American fans much like they can for other WWE programming. Secondly, what will Vince McMahon’s involvement be behind the scenes, as currently Triple H runs NXT and he gets plaudits for every show that is produced, whereas Vince on the other hand gets criticism from the IWC, who are the more hardcore fans who will have to decide what to watch, NXT or AEW.
Almost 20 years ago the then WWF were tangled in the Monday Night Wars with Ted Turner’s WCW, fans had to choose which product they’d watch and support, whereas in 2019 it is much easier to DVR and to catch up if you miss an episode of any TV programme, so with that in mind is it really a war, if you can watch NXT first, stay off your social media and then watch AEW or even watch them both at the same time using different devices.
Of course as well 20 years ago there were almost 10 million fans watching wrestling week in week out, whereas now Raw does well if they can beat 3 million, my question is where have the other 7 million wrestling fans gone and will they come back?
The ironic and coincidental thing about all of this is AEW will be airing on TNT, the same broadcasting network that WCW was on, so once again WWE are rivals to Ted Turner, but instead of his chequebook being used to compete with Vince McMahon’s it’ll be the Khan’s, who own Jacksonville Jaguars, Fulham FC and are financially can face-off against the McMahon’s.
NXT has been one of the most popular brands in the last decade, from it’s rebranding from FCW to NXT, we’ve seen independent darlings join and then progress to the main roster and becoming worldwide stars, and for it to get a TV deal and for it to be live every week is deserved, however it does seem they’re forcing their target market to pick a show to watch by going head to head, but that is obviously their intentions as if they stayed taped on Wednesday night’s, AEW could spoil NXT episodes that hadn’t even aired yet, much like Tony Schiavone did 20 years, it was a move that certainly put bums in seats.
AEW have had a few PPV’s since forming in January 2019 and already has it’s following, however it is the same following as NXT, look at previous AEW shows, the fan that was kiseed by Kip Sabian is the same fan who’s in the front row of NXT tapings, and believe me there’s nothing wrong with wanting to root for other companies to succeed, but now there’s that decision what to do on a Wednesday night at 8pm EST do you put TNT on for AEW or do you choose NXT and who will win the ratings wars?
My opinion is the winner is us, the wrestling fans, wrestling could become the talk of the playground once again, one fan will be wearing an Elite shirt, and the other wearing a Undisputed Era shirt.
So all I want to know is Are you ready? Because I know on October 2nd when AEW and NXT will compete against each other us for the first time ever, it’ll be either Elite or Undisputed.
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