Former NXT Tag Team Champion Danny Burch has revealed that NXT would monitor AEW Dynamite in real time during the Wednesday Night Wars and make last-minute changes to their own show in direct response to what AEW was doing.
Speaking on Cafe De Rene, Burch, real name Martin Stone, described the behind-the-scenes atmosphere at NXT during the period when both shows aired on Wednesday nights and detailed a specific incident in which he and tag team partner Oney Lorcan lost significant time from their scheduled main event.
“We would have two TVs in Gorilla, and they would be watching AEW, and then they would be trying to change the show to compete with what they were doing,” Burch said. “I’ll never forget, me and my tag partner. We were scheduled to have a 30-minute main event, and I was really excited about it. We had three segments. We’re the Tag Champs, we were gonna get to go out there and really kill it.”
The planned match was altered after producers monitoring Dynamite noticed a women’s match opening the AEW broadcast. “Because they were watching AEW Dynamite and heard that there was a women’s match on first, they cut us to 10 minutes with entrances and said, you guys are gonna go on first so we can steal the opening,” Burch said.
Burch also addressed the official line from WWE management that NXT was never in direct competition with AEW, recalling how Shawn Michaels dismissed AEW’s roster composition. “Shawn used to say, oh well, you’re just working guys that we didn’t want, blah blah,” Burch said. “And I’m sitting there in the back thinking, well, actually, no. Technically, we’re going up against the likes of Chris Jericho and people like that.”
Burch was direct about his view of the contradiction between the official narrative and the reality behind the curtain. “When they turned around and said we were never in competition, you’re full of it,” Burch said. “Yes, you were.”
AEW Dynamite debuted in October 2019, two weeks after NXT began airing on the USA Network. The two shows aired head-to-head on Wednesday nights from October 2019 through April 2021, a period referred to as the Wednesday Night Wars. NXT ultimately moved to Tuesday nights in April 2021, something that many people regarded as an acknowledgment that Dynamite had won the ratings battle. Burch held the NXT Tag Team Championships once during his WWE tenure, alongside Lorcan.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Cafe De Rene with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
