As much as Triple H and Cody Rhodes both said they weren’t that concerned about competing with each other, we’ve all been waiting (and we know they were too) to see how AEW Dynamite stood up to NXT when it came to viewership numbers. Now those numbers are out, and it looks like AEW did well.
As reported by Wrestling Inc with numbers from Showbuzz Daily, last night’s NXT on USA drew 891,000 viewers, while the first episode of AEW Dynamite on TNT drew 1.409 million viewers.
AEW came in second on cable among the 18-49 demographic, topped only by the MLB Wild Card game on ESPN, while NXT ranked at #10. AEW was #16 in overall viewership, while NXT was #27. NXT’s numbers were down a bit from the last two weeks, when only one hour ran on USA. That hour had 1.179 million viewers on September 18, and 1.006 million on September 25.
Of course, as many have noted, premieres and whatever people are curious about draw more than normal (as reflected by NXT’s high numbers from two weeks ago). The real story will be how these numbers look in a few weeks, and then again in a few months. Whether you want to call it a war or not, it’s a whole different world in televised wrestling than it’s been in a long time.
