AEW and WWE go head-to-head at 8PM ET tonight – and both promotions are taking great measures to avoid defeat in the one-off ratings battle.
Following on from last week’s NXT announcements, it has emerged that AEW’s special ‘Title Tuesday’ episode of Dynamite will have a 10-minute overrun, 30-minute ‘Buy In’ pre-show featuring Eddie Kingston vs. Minoru Suzuki on YouTube, Facebook, and X, and air its first half-hour commercial-free.
Fightful Select broke the news of the overrun on Monday, theoretically giving Dynamite a short, unopposed run against NXT, thus boosting its average ratings across the broadcast.
AEW founder and CEO Tony Khan confirmed the 30 commercial-free minutes on X, doing so within hours of WWE’s announcement that NXT would feature the same:
Later, Khan announced the ‘Buy In’, with Kingston defending his ROH World and NJPW Strong Openweight Championships against puroresu legend Suzuki:
Dynamite’s one-week pre-emption to Tuesday this week sparked a brief reprisal of the old Wednesday Night Wars. AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT ran head to head between 2 October 2019 and 7 April 2021, when NXT withdrew to Tuesdays, having outdone Dynamite only once in the key 18-49 demographic throughout that period.
WWE has announced main roster stars Cody Rhodes, John Cena, Paul Heyman, and Asuka for NXT, and teased an appearance from The Undertaker.
