Wednesday Night Wars: AEW Dynamite Wins Again Over WWE NXT, Both Shows Suffer Due To Coronavirus Coverage

AEW Dynamite won another week in the ratings over WWE NXT, despite both shows suffering hits in viewership due to coverage of the coronavirus and President Trump’s speech.

AEW took the bigger hit in the ratings, dropping from 906,000 viewers on March 4 to 766,000 viewers on Wednesday. Dynamite continued beating NXT in the 18-49 demographic, but the viewership drop was reflected in a 0.26 score. This was largely thanks due to the coverage of President Trump’s speech on the coronavirus and to announce the limited travel ban to Europe.

Tensions between the Inner Circle and The Elite were front and center throughout Wednesday’s episode.

It kicked off with a match between The Elite’s Cody and the Inner Circle’s Ortiz. While Ortiz’s tag team partner, Santana, interfered several times during the match, Cody pulled out another victory. However, the Chris Jericho and the rest of the Inner Circle made their presence known by beating down Nick Jackson of the Young Bucks backstage.

Looming over the segment was the newly signed Lance Archer, who appeared in the crowd with Jake “The Snake” Roberts to watch Cody.

Fans would then were treated to several tag team matches, including a pair of six-man tag matches. MJF, The Butcher and The Blade beat The Jurassic Express in the first six-man tag of the night. The second match saw the team of Joey Janela and Private Party lose to the newly united team of PAC, Rey Fenix and Pentagon Jr., aka Death Triangle.

AEW’s women division got two more chances to shine Wednesday, first in a tag team match where AEW Women’s Champion Nyla Rose and Bea Priestly beat Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida. Priestly then attacked Rose, making her championship aspirations clear.

Britt Baker had another interview with Tony Schiavone, this time interrupted by Big Swole.

Hangman Page closed out the show in a tag team match with a mystery partner against Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara. Page’s partner ended up being Dustin Rhodes, against Page’s wishes, who was looking for some payback against the Inner Circle for the attack earlier. Page and Rhodes won the match, but the Inner Circle got the last laugh for the night as they laid out the rest of the Elite.

NXT also suffered a drop in the ratings, but it was not as steep as AEW. The show scored 697,000 viewers Wednesday night, down from 718,000 for the March 4 episode.

Wednesday’s NXT emanated from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando due to a scheduling conflict with a Full Sail University event at the Full Sail Arena. It opened with the first of two title matches as Cameron Grimes faced Keith Lee for Lee’s NXT North American Championship. Lee was victorious over a game Grimes, but was attacked by Damien Priest following the match. Dominic Dijakovic came down to save, but Lee laid out Dijakovic believing he was the one who attacked him.

This was followed by a pair of qualifying matches for the NXT Women’s Championship No. 1 contender’s ladder match at NXT TakeOver: Tampa Bay. Mia Yim beat Dakota Kai in the first match, followed by Tegan Nox defeating Deonna Purrazzo.

Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne were then set to defend their NXT Tag Team Championships against the Undisputed Era’s Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish. Dunne and Riddle ultimately retained against O’Reilly and Fish, but not before the Grizzled Young Veterans made their presence known.

Tommaso Ciampa came out to the ring to close out the show, demanding Johnny Gargano come out and fight him. However, Gargano appeared on the entrance screen and verbally taunted Ciampa from one of the Performance Center’s offices. Ciampa rushed back to the offices and the two began brawling across the building. It culminated with Ciampa suplexing Gargano from a ringside balcony onto the announcer’s table below.