It was reported on Wednesday that there have been ongoing discussions between WWE and the USA Network about NXT possibly moving to a different night instead of Wednesday due to them having better ratings without going head-to-head with AEW Dynamite.
Since the Wednesday Night War started, Dynamite has won the majority of the time in total viewership and key demos.
Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio provided an update on this decision and the mindset behind it. The USA Network and Vince McMahon are in the fight together against AEW.
“But USA is in the same fight as Vince, you got to remember. You think they’re not in this fight together but they are. They both have this same mentality. Neither side wants another wrestling company to be doing well.”
Meltzer brought up how the USA Network has skin in the game as they paid WWE a lot of money for rights fees and wants to be known as the #1 network for wrestling. Thus, with TNT having a new wrestling company competing against them with younger viewers, USA doesn’t want their competition to be stronger.
“From day one, every single person knew that if they put NXT on television on Thursday or Tuesday it would draw significantly more than it would draw on Wednesday.”
“The only reason that NXT is on television is to keep AEW…they weren’t put on television to build the brand, they were put on television to make sure AEW went out of business and obviously in January things changed.”
In January, TNT announced a three-year extension for AEW Dynamite. That is when WWE and USA Network realized that their plan to stop AEW didn’t succeed.
When the extension was announced and it was known that AEW was staying with TNT for the next few years, the idea of moving NXT to another night was shut down. During those meetings, there has been some talk about NXT losing the war against AEW, but nothing has changed regarding moving the show. A decision in the future about this move could be made if ratings continue to decline.
