The wrestling ratings war continued its constant battle as the calendar flipped to the first week of September. Except, as in weeks past where it has been a contest to see which company would win Wednesday night, it flipped to a rising tides lift all boats mentality.
Earlier in the week a rumor surfaced that World Wrestling Entertainment’s brand, “NXT” may be moving nights from Wednesday to Tuesday.
The brand saw a bump in ratings as they ran their “Super Tuesday” show that saw a four-man “Iron Man” match headline the night. The overnight rating came in at 849K and a .26 rating in the 18-49 male demo. The previous week, when the show ran uncontested due to All Elite Wrestling being preempted due to the NBA Playoffs, the show produced a total viewership of 824K and a .24 demo rating.
The rumor of moving to Tuesday Night permanently first came out from the Twitter handle @WrestlerVotes.
Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer newsletter had more news of a possible move from Wednesday to Tuesday adding: “Wrestling Observer Radio reports that Vince McMahon and the USA Network have the same mentality when it comes to AEW. They ultimately don’t want another wrestling company to succeed in attracting a fanbase like AEW has, especially considering that USA’s partnership with WWE is worth $265 million, while AEW and TNT are set at a $40 million deal.” (Wrestling INC.)
AEW’s go-home show before their “All Out” pay-per-view did one of the company’s best rating in their short time as a wrestling promotion. Headlined by the build to the pay-per-view’s main event, Jon Moxley defending his AEW World Title against challenger Maxwell Jacob Friedman, helped the show deliver total viewership of 928K and a .36 rating.
This number was even more impressive since AEW had to return to their normal time slot after previously bouncing around due to the NBA Playoffs. Over the prior two-weeks “Dynamite” had to move to Saturday, then Thursday. However, the promotion never saw a dip in their ratings as Saturday’s 8/22 show did 755K and Thursday’s broadcast did 813K.
On Monday night, WWE’s flagship show “RAW” saw a slight dip in their audience going from 2.02 million viewers to 1.89 million. However, the show still finished fourth for the night; only trailing the NBA playoffs.
RAW, compared to Dynamite and NXT, is a three hour show. Overall the program drew a high rating, however, the show saw a decrease in viewership throughout each hour.
Hour One: 2.10 million
Hour Two: 1.88 million
Hour Three: 1.70 million
Friday Night Smackdown airs tonight, therefore those ratings numbers won’t be available until next week. Last week’s episode which saw Roman Reigns confirm his heel turn and align with Paul Heyman produced an average of 2,181,000 viewers, including a peak during the first hour where 2,210,000 fans tuned in. The show received a 0.6 rating among the key 18-49 demographic.
Wrestling as a whole had a great week. RAW’s large audience on Monday night helped NXT have a solid lead in where viewers didn’t have to wait a day to watch WWE’s NXT show. The same goes for AEW not having to share its audience, helping them come close to eclipsing the one-million total viewer mark.
Wrestling fans love to romanticize about the “Monday Night Wars” where there were more people watching cable television back in 1997-99. However, with more viewers dropping cable for streaming services, the days of flipping the channel back and forth between WWE (back then WWF) and World Championship Wrestling are long gone.
It makes more sense to let each promotion have their own night on prime time cable television. Each company has their chance to captivate the wrestling audience without having to lose a small group of people to the other company.
Rising tides lift all ships, and in this case rising ratings lifts all wrestling promotions.
T.J. McAloon is a freelance writer, Texas High School football journalist, and avid follower of the professional wrestling business. He can be reached on Twitter @TJMcAloon or by email at TMcAloon18@gmail.com.
