AEW President Tony Khan recently went head-to-head against NXT, which featured WWE star CM Punk. Due to election scheduling conflicts, the global sports entertainment juggernaut decided to postpone its show from Wednesday to Thursday. This meant the show went head-to-head against Dynamite. Also, it was not an ordinary show; it was a Blood and Guts edition of Dynamite. Both women’s and men’s matches were violent and bloody. On the other hand, NXT brought in top stars like John Cena, Cody Rhodes, the 946 faction and CM Punk to attract more eyes.
Recently, ratings for both shows were released. While NXT garnered 552,000 viewers, Dynamite drew 792,000 total viewers. All Elite Wrestling’s flagship show won the counterprogramming war by a mile.
After garnering huge numbers, AEW President Tony Khan took to X and claimed that the show pulled in good 18-49 demographics, which it hadn’t drawn in the past couple of years.
“Thank you all who watched Wednesday Night #AEWDynamite Blood & Guts! I thought that it was a tremendous show, & had excellent viewership, including AEW’s most 18 to 49 viewers on @TBSNetwork in years! See you at Saturday #AEWCollision Rock n Rager TOMORROW & Full Gear next week!” he wrote.
Tony Khan talks about WWE’s counterprogramming
While speaking on the Ariel Helwani Show, Tony Khan said the counterprogramming has never affected them in any aspect.
“I do think it’s done on purpose, and I understand it, and it’s part of wrestling. I think we’ve seen a lot of it, but I think other wrestling promotions that have been the challenger wrestling brand in our lifetime have seen a lot of it…I think it’s okay, because for us, it’s always worked out, and we’re in a great position. It hasn’t ever been a thing where it’s cost us anything. And even when you do something like AEW All In: Texas where we do the show in the afternoon, it really worked out for us great. And it was one of the best days in the history of the company,” said Khan.
It will be interesting to see what is next for AEW as Full Gear approaches.
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Edited by Tejas Pagare
