Tag: AEW Vs. NXT

AEW Dynamite will be airing a daily earlier this week for their annual Title Tuesday episode with Collision airing the next night. It’s not the first time they are running on a Tuesday night and it also isn’t the first time that they will be going head-to-head with WWE’s NXT brand but this time , it’s a no-win situation for Tony Khan and company.

NXT has been doing crossover promotion with TNA for the past few months, and it all looks set to come to a head (creatively, at least) this Tuesday. The show was initially named Invasion, playing on the old 2001 PPV imagery and really pushing the idea that TNA could be a threat to NXT, but due to the historical significance of October 7 to Israel and the Hamas attacks, WWE changed the name to Showdown.

The card for Showdown, as of this writing, looks pretty much finalized with both companies putting their biggest talent forward in elimination matches in addition to a winner takes all Tag Team title match between The Hardyz and DarkState.

By contrast, Dynamite (again as of this writing) only has a Mercedes Mone open challenge confirmed for the card in addition to match between Brodido and Konosuke Takeshita & Kazuchika Okada that may be postponed due to Bandido’s injury and a street fight between The Hurt Syndicate and The Demand.

We saw during the Wednesday Night Wars that both companies were more than willing to try and get ahead of each other in terms of television ratings, but it’s looking this time that Khan may be focusing more on the ongoing television creative week-to-week rather than hotshotting their own version of a supercard together to combat what is going on at The CW.

The problem here is that Khan and AEW are pretty much in a no-win situation and, ironically, it’s almost a complete flip from where NXT was back when AEW started airing on Wednesday nights in 2019.

Why Tony Khan can’t win

Khan and AEW are in a difficult position and when I say that they can’t “win,” I mean from a perception standpoint: AEW can either beat WWE’s third brand by loading up and doing a random one-off card, or they lose outright to WWE’s third brand.

The NXT of 2025 is not like the NXT of 2019 or the years proceeding. Long gone are the days when NXT TakeOver shows would be the highlight of a PPV weekend with the likes of Adam Cole, Sami Zayn, Sasha Banks, Bayley, Johnny Gargano, etc. putting on cards that would rival anything else in the industry.

Now, we’re genuinely seeing a developmental brand where either established names begin to learn the WWE style (Ricky Saints, Ethan Page) or younger names get their reps in on television (Trick Williams, Lola Vice).

So how do you approach this situation if you’re Tony Khan? Do you keep serving the television audience and stay the course with your current storylines, or do you try and counteract what WWE is doing on Tuesday night? From a perception standpoint, AEW simply cannot win either way. They either look flustered by the competition or they just hope that they have enough going creatively to beat a big invasion-esque storyline.

Why WWE and TNA will win

So if Khan and AEW can’t win on Tuesday, does that mean that WWE and TNA will actually win? Yes, it does. TNA is more than likely heading to The CW on Wednesday nights to compete head-to-head with AEW, and it’s a defacto way for WWE to go head-to-head with AEW without an actual branch of the company having to do so.

If TNA ends up beating AEW, that’s great for WWE business. But if they don’t? It’s only TNA will be the excuse. TNA gets a huge push in terms of branding on Tuesday night ahead of their new television deal set to be announced and NXT gets a differential and a big moment on Tuesday when the two brands collide — all without it actually looking like a hotshotted show to compete with Title Tuesday on TBS.

If AEW does better ratings than NXT? Well, it’s AEW’s biggest weekly show so it should be doing better ratings from a perspective standpoint, and WWE can essentially lay the blame at TNA’s door. If NXT vs. TNA beats AEW in the ratings, it’s a genuine perception changer for TNA. At least, that is how they will try to position themselves ahead of a potential Wednesday night move and WWE will get one over on the only real competition left with zero risk.

Triple H was in charge of NXT when AEW were beating them on television weekly and it led to Vince McMahon completely changing how NXT worked as a brand. With Triple H now in charge of creative on the main roster, there has to at least be a part of him that relishes the idea of sticking it to Tony Khan and AEW Dynamite one more time with “his” brand.