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LOOKING AT THE POSITIVES AND POTENTIAL NEGATIVE OF AEW AND WWE NXT NOW AIRING ON SEPARATE EVENINGS

When I was a young kid, there was an excellent science fiction miniseries that aired on NBC titled V.  The premise was that alien Visitors descended upon Earth in 50 Motherships, arriving in the spirit of friendship because they needed our help.  Of course, that wouldn't have made for a very interesting story, so as you probably guessed, the Visitors were indeed, not our friends and over time, had taken over the world, declaring martial law.  Humanity rose up against them, forming a Resistance and at the end of the mini-series, there is a battle that sees The Visitors retreat.  They are still in control of the world, but in this instance, the heroes have turned them back.

There is a great back and forth between actors Michael T. Wright and Faye Grant at the end, a cliffhanger of what's to come.  Wright, as Elias Taylor, remarks that they won the battle. 

Grant, as Dr. Juliet Parrish, responds, "Yes, but the war is just beginning."

Today, WWE announced they were moving NXT to Tuesdays, a move that certainly has AEW fans beating their chest in celebration.  I understand and appreciate that swagger but the reality is that for AEW and NXT, the war is still just beginning.  Only, they are no longer facing each other and firing back and forth at ten paces like Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

Instead, they now go to war with the new reality of what it means to be out there in the ocean alone, fighting off everyone else.  That might be a great thing or it might be, in hindsight, the worst move for everyone involved.

For WWE NXT, the move gets them out of the line of fire.  No matter what anyone working for the company will ever state on the record, the show was moved to the USA Network to blunt and deflect the debut of AEW Dynamite to make sure that the first major national threat to WWE's genre supremacy in a generation didn't have the deepest possible initial impact.  In some ways, it worked.  AEW's current weekly audience, based on the Nielsen overnights, is nowhere near what they had out of the gate.  NXT can take credit for that, but they also found themselves exposed in the process.

When they were on the WWE Network, all that was known is that NXT was one of the most popular shows on the streaming service, which could be infinitely spun in positive ways.  Once the show moved to the USA Network, the reality was that only a portion of the viewers who were watching Raw and Smackdown were tuning in Wednesday nights.  Like ECW when it debuted on TNN in 1999, the true audience that was watching the promotion was now exposed and it was nowhere near the numbers that its buzz indicated. 

The hopes among fans that a Wednesday night war might ignite massive viewership at the levels of Raw vs. WCW Monday Nitro in the mid-1990s were quickly quelled as changes in technology and how audience members watched television made those nostalgic hopes impossible.  AEW and NXT split the atom.  Whether fans were flipping back and forth, DVRing one while watching the other or picking one over the other outright, they were not turning out at the levels many believed would happen at the beginning of this social experiment.

Part of the issue may have been that NXT was an island unto itself in the WWE "universe."  Unlike the push to debut WWE's version of ECW in 2006, there was nothing beyond some commercials funneling the Raw and Smackdown audience over to NXT.  Certainly, there were no appearances or angles on Raw but now, with NXT moving to Tuesdays, there's certainly a more likely chance that WWE will provide more than moral support to their third brand. 

Why couldn't Bobby Lashley issue an open challenge and then Karrion Kross shows up, even via the Titantron, to call him and dare him to step in the Capitol Wrestling Center?  Why can't Finn Balor show up on Monday and challenge Bray Wyatt to come and face him for the NXT title on Tuesday?  Yes, NXT is supposed to be the lifeblood of WWE's future, but unlike the bubble that was the WWE Network, the goal of the brand has to also be getting numbers on the show.  If it moves to Tuesday and then, for some reason, viewership declines, that is NOT a good sign, at all.  So, it's in WWE's best interest to try and pump it up, as much as possible.

If moving to Tuesdays makes that more organic for WWE to try and lift NXT upwards, it's more than worth the effort because the ends justify the means - and the ends has to be making NXT a stronger brand.  If WWE can make that happen, the move to Tuesday is a victory for them and for NBCU.

Among AEW fans, there is a strong celebration today.  I would advise everyone within and supporting AEW to humbly and quietly accept the victory.   Screaming about it publicly can only turn off some of the very audience you are hoping to convert to Wednesdays now that NXT is no longer a factor.  Everyone knows who blinked here, even if WWE will say they blinked because NBCU wanted the show moved.  AEW raced to the end of the marathon first, but that doesn't mean they should take a victory lap and point at themselves.  No, in fact, they should do just the opposite.  It's time to re-direct all the energy they feel over the victory and focus it into how they can improve their own show, continue to expand their audience and garner more viewers, all of which only helps serve their partner, Warnermedia.

Surely, one of the reasons Dynamite scored so well out of the gate with viewers was the heavy marketing and advertising campaign that Warnermedia launched in support of the series.  It was impossible, at least in New York City, to go to a movie without seeing a "Coming Soon" ad for Dynamite running before the coming attractions.  TNT went all out promoting the show and now that WWE has moved NXT, they might be well advised to do it again to build to a big "event" broadcast to try and garner a second wave of new eyeballs, effectively giving AEW a second chance at a first impression, for lack of a better description.

AEW being alone on Wednesdays means that for the first time ever, consistently, the promotion will have a chance to see what their viewership could be without WWE interference.  That means that they will get to live or die, week to week, on the merits of their talents, their presentation and their storylines.  AEW's culture has been different from most episodic wrestling series, putting far more national newcomers at the forefront but more recently, we've seen them hire Paul Wight, Christian Cage, Sting, etc. to supplement The Elite on top and the frenzied workrate of the roster. 

Without NXT there on Wednesdays, it will be an interesting experiment to truly see whether WWE fans will shift over to see these names in a different environment, the way they followed Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, etc. to WCW in 1994.  It will also be interesting to see how AEW balances those names with the roster that dug the trenches and how they can get the best out of both worlds - the diehard fans who support them to an insanely zealous degree and the fans who are more likely to have grown up watching WWE and aren't as open to trying other companies.   

AEW now has free reign to do all this without interference and starting the week of 4/13, they get to jump off the cliff and see how the audience responds - and whether the NXT audience comes to them and most importantly, stays with AEW.   

If the numbers rise and stay higher, AEW obviously is in a better place.  Warnermedia obviously has their interests in making AEW as strong as possible - they didn't order a second series plus the Cody and Brandi Rhodes reality series if they didn't intend to build on their investment in AEW Dynamite.   They see AEW as a quality asset.  Shows that aren't seen as such as quickly stunted to deadend timeslots and forgotten.  Anyone remember how quickly MTV murdered Wrestling Society X?

So, as these AEW and WWE NXT split apart onto different nights, the hope on each side is that the move will see the audience rise considerably for their side.  If that happens, it leaves everyone in a stronger place - the promotions, the networks, the talents and certainly, the fans.

But what if that doesn't happen?   What if NXT's audience shrinks on Tuesdays?  What if WWE fans don't switch over and sign up to ride the AEW Express on Wednesdays?  What if the lesson learned here is that the promotions indeed needed the other competing against them at the same time all along in order to stoke interest because the fans going back and forth enhanced each side's overall audiences?  What if, separated from each other, there ends up being far less interest in one or the other or both? 

What if the end of the Wednesday Night Wars just quiets the buzz across the board? 

What happens then and what lessons do we learn?

It seems unlikely but over the last few years, what we have seen is that we don't know what could happen next, in pro wrestling and in life.  

So what now?

Plus, if anyone really, truly thinks this war is over, done, forever, come on. 

Competition has always made professional wrestling grander and more vibrant, whether it was Jim Crockett Promotions putting the first Clash of Champions against Wrestlemania IV, WWF running house shows the night before other promotions in their home buildings or WWE NXT being formed to try and stave off ITV's World of Sport Wrestling TV series.   

Plus, WWE doesn't like to lose.  If anyone believes for a second that WWE won't keep eyeing AEW and seeing how they can try to compete to attempt to keep the promotion from growing, they haven't been paying attention. If they can figure out a new strategy to try and cut AEW off at the knees, they will.  That's what they've always done.

Secondly, let's not forget that Warnermedia and NBCU are also competing, so if Warner comes to AEW and decides they want a second show opposite WWE or even want Dynamite to move to Tuesday nights, because they feel it betters Warnermedia, you can all but guarantee that show will end up where Tony Khan initially wanted it and it will be very quickly morph into Tuesday Night Dynamite.  In the game of chess and the game of life, it's always someone's turn next.  Who's to say AEW won't decide to go on the offense towards NXT?

While each side is now eyeing the other from different nights, they are in no way going to just start ignoring the other.  Everyone has just returned to their respective corner before the next round, hoping to recuperate and potentially gain more viewers with this newfound distance between them.

Once again, we step into the unknown and for wrestling fans, the unknown is fun.  For the promotions, however, it's a new start with equal parts excitement and worry.  For the fans, it's all about living vicariously.  For those who do this for a living, it's still life and death, only a new chapter in that journey.

We have no idea what will happen starting April 13th, but we do know one thing.

The battle is over.

The war, however, has just begun.

Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.

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