Wednesday Night War

             If you are a wrestling fan be prepared to clear your schedule for Wednesday evenings.  TNT’s All Elite Wrestling and WWE’s NXT have been battling for viewers the past fours week for the prime time spot. Wrestling fans are now forced to either pick between the two shows or switch back and forth between networks Last night was an exciting night for both shows as they were filled with great storylines and entertaining matches. It was definitely the most exciting night of the past four weeks of Wednesday Night Wars which is why I was surprised to see such a dramatic decline in views.

           Captivating new fans to tune in and remain watching seems to be an increasing problem in the world of wrestling. However there are some factors affecting this including the MLB World Series.  Last night 1.018 million viewers tuned in to AEW Dynamite compared to the previous week of 1.4 millions viewers. 878,000 of these viewers fall in the 18-49 years old demographic which is the most popular audience for wrestling. (I can speak to this as I fall in this category). Many people believe that the ‘Golden Era’ of Wrestling has come and gone but I think that we are on the cusp of another golden age that is only possible with the support of true wrestling fans.


         Dynamite had  an agreement with TNT that if the Cardinals and Braves played past 8:30pm in last nights’ National League Division Series game then AEW programming would be moved to TruTV. This was the case last night and I believe that this could have contributed to the decline in viewers. On the other hand, WWE’s NXT had 790,000 viewers last night with 414,000 of them falling in the 18-49 years catergory. They also faced a decline since last week where 891,000 viewers tuned in. Another reason that could have led to the downturn of  views could be the ‘casual viewers’ who were flipping through the channels browsing for something to watch. It is possible that new fans landed on either event and continued browsing or selected other sporting events.


At the end of the day true wrestling fans should always tune in regardless of other sporting events- this is the only way to enter the new ‘Golden Era’ of wrestling.