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Rumor: WWE Considering Moving NXT Off Wednesday Nights

By John Canton • Published 2nd September 2020

The WWE NXT brand has been on USA Network television since late September 2019. Prior to that, it was a WWE Network show for over five years. The reason they moved to Wednesday was to counter the AEW Dynamite show on TNT, which started in October 2019. It created a head to head competition between Dynamite and WWE”s third brand. While we don’t report the ratings every week, it’s fair to say that AEW has dominated that matchup and has more total viewers on a consistent basis.

There is now a rumor out there that WWE is considering a permanent change that would take NXT off Wednesday nights. The rumor comes from @Wrestlevotes, who has been proven to be reliable in the past, but we don’t know how valid this report is.

The reason it says “the numbers over the next two weeks might have some impact” is because NXT aired on Tuesday last night and will be on Tuesday next week as well.

The numbers indicate that NXT going on a night where it isn’t against AEW is a good idea. After, the August 19 episode of NXT drew 853,000 viewers when Dynamite was moved to Saturday that week due to the NBA Playoffs. That was NXT’s biggest audience since last November. If you’re USA Network and you know that you can get a bigger audience on a night when you aren’t against Dynamite then it makes sense to move.

We will update this post if there is more information about it.

TJR Thoughts: I’m all for it. I vote for Tuesday. (I don’t have a vote.) I assume they would avoid Thursday since NFL is on Thursday on Fox for four months and they dominate that night. We know it wouldn’t be Monday or Friday. That leaves Tuesday.

Think about it this way. If WWE knows NXT can get more viewers by going to Tuesday (I know Impact is there, but their audience is not what Dynamite does) regularly then it makes sense. NXT two weeks ago that didn’t go against Dynamite got their highest viewership number since last November. It’s also good for AEW because then it’s the only major wrestling show on Wednesday nights. I think it’s better for the fans too.

For me from a personal standpoint, the full version of NXT isn’t shown on Canada TV anyway. If I want the two hours I can get it on WWE Network about 24 hours after it airs. Since I write the reviews of NXT the next day, I download it and review it that way. As a reviewer, NXT on Tuesday makes life easier for me because then I’m not going to be rushing as much on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning and things are spaced out nicely.