Road Dogg Speaks On The "Competition" Between NXT And AEW

Rollie Forbes

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During a recent appearance on Busted Open Radio, WWE Hall of Famer Road Dogg discussed how while working in WWE NXT, he did not view AEW as competition for the NXT brand. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Road Dogg on not viewing WWE NXT as competition to AEW: “This is how I look at that. I’m trying to calm down a little before I react or respond. I don’t think NXT lost the head-to-head battle. I don’t think it was ever meant to. I think things got out of hand a little bit and USA agreed to a deal for NXT and Vince (McMahon) wanted that to be what it is now. He wanted it to be a total tryout thing. ‘Put these people on TV, we’ll see if they stick, and we’ll get them up here.’ Hunter has a different philosophy. ‘Train them, make sure they’re good to go before you put them on TV.’ It’s two totally different philosophies. Speaking from NXT, and I say this from sitting in every meeting when it was Black & Gold and writing, producing, and directing, we never once thought we were competing with those guys.”

On looking at NXT as purely as a developmental program: “We looked at ourselves as a developmental program. I hope for AEW they weren’t thinking that beating a developmental program was a notch in their belt because it was people nobody had ever heard of on a Tuesday night against Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley. I always thought that was apples and oranges and you can tell I take I t personally because I worked there. Of course, we wanted to beat them, but we never thought we were in competition or had to write for competition. We just wrote the best show we could.”
 

Toe Jay Simpson

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WWE started that mess when they put NXT on Wednesday’s 2 weeks before Dynamite debuted. However it’s a valid point that AEW celebrating beating them in the ratings…and only by like 200k was a bad look. Even worse of a look was Tony Khan hiring all these guys people didnt have an interest in watching and pushing them over the guys that did clear the ratings gap. Think about it, if I turned on NXT and saw Adam Cole and said “I’m not interested” and switched over to AEW how does that endear the product to me right now?

But this whole thing was on Vince just being petty and trying to be cute with an upstart competitor
 

MushroomX

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Of course, we wanted to beat them, but we never thought we were in competition or had to write for competition. We just wrote the best show we could.”

This is why Road Dogg is a failure. In a competition vs. AEW, or anything, your not writing to win against AEW based on better stories. Your competing against the Attention Span of the Audience. Your writing a show, so that they don't wait for one match, and switch over to another brand. You want the show to be solid through the card, for them to stay all 3 hours.

In today's world of streaming, in which the ratings will always be down and never get back to late 90's levels, your fighting for the audience to not watch something on HBO Max or Amazon.
 

CBoz

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WWE started that mess when they put NXT on Wednesday’s 2 weeks before Dynamite debuted. However it’s a valid point that AEW celebrating beating them in the ratings…and only by like 200k was a bad look. Even worse of a look was Tony Khan hiring all these guys people didnt have an interest in watching and pushing them over the guys that did clear the ratings gap. Think about it, if I turned on NXT and saw Adam Cole and said “I’m not interested” and switched over to AEW how does that endear the product to me right now?

But this whole thing was on Vince just being petty and trying to be cute with an upstart competitor
NXT wasn't "put" on Wednesdays. It WAS on Wednesdays on the WWE Network long before AEW and Dynamite existed. When it was time for NXT to move to USA, everyone figured "Why move it from it's usual spot that everyone knows." It was early on that AEW wanted Dynamite on Tuesday. They even went as far as trying to trademark "Tuesday Night Dynamite" but the NBA shut that down with NBA on TNT being on Tuesdays during the season.
 

dh86

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NXT wasn't "put" on Wednesdays. It WAS on Wednesdays on the WWE Network long before AEW and Dynamite existed. When it was time for NXT to move to USA, everyone figured "Why move it from it's usual spot that everyone knows." It was early on that AEW wanted Dynamite on Tuesday. They even went as far as trying to trademark "Tuesday Night Dynamite" but the NBA shut that down with NBA on TNT being on Tuesdays during the season.

So it was placed on Wednesdays. Remember the head start? Lol
 

Da King

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As expected, mentally weak AEW incel markkks taking offense to the obvious :mjlol:


“But but but he wants a play fighting job :mjcry:
 
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