has the latest ratings for this week’s edition of the Wednesday Night Wars battle between WWE NXT and AEW Dynamite. This week’s AEW was a special Fight for the Fallen episode. AEW won the night in both ratings and overall viewership for this week’s Wednesday Night Wars battle. Not only did Fight for the Fallen surpass last night’s NXT by over 157,000 viewers, AEW more than doubled NXT’s ratings in the key demographic. So, let’s get to it.
AEW actually managed its highest overnight audience since the May 27 episode with 788,000 viewers. That’s up from last week’s audience of 715,000 viewers for the second edition of AEW Fyter Fest. Meanwhile, after a recent surge in viewership thanks to the Great American Bash-themed shows, NXT fell behind this week, dropping to 631,000 viewers for its overnight audience. The show dropped 128,000 viewers from last week’s show, which 759,000 viewers for the overnight audience.
In terms of the ratings, AEW had a slight uptick from last week. Fight for the Fallen drew an overnight rating of 0.29 in the key P18-49 demo. That’s a slight increase from last week’s 0.28 rating for the second night of Fyter Fest. Elsewhere, NXT had a stiff drop in the ratings department. The show fell from a 0.20 rating for the second night of The Great American Bash to a 0.14 for last night.
NXT and AEW both faced stiff competition last night. ESPN featured a live UFC Fight Night card, and FS1 aired the NASCAR All-Star Open. However, it should be noted that AEW came out significantly ahead of last night’s UFC event, which was headlined by a featherweight main event between Calvin Kattar and Dan Ige. UFC finished with 536,000 viewers for its main card broadcast on ESPN an da 0.22 rating in the same key demo. So, Fight for the Fallen finished ahead of a live ESPN UFC broadcast in both ratings and viewership. NXT did outdraw UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs. Ige in overall viewership, but not in the key demo ratings.
AEW Fight for the Fallen likely benefitted from coming off two strong back-to-back shows. Also, last night’s episode featured the delayed Brian Cage vs. Jon Moxley world title match in the main event slot and an overall strong card. NXT was coming off a show that featured Adam Cole vs. Keith Lee in a huge main event title vs. title match last week. But in NXT’s favor, they were coming down from a strong run of shows and overall overnight audience performances against AEW. However, there’s no debate who won last night’s battle between wrestling programs. It was AEW in both ratings and viewership.
