Wednesday Night Wars: AEW Wins Ratings 4th Straight Week, NXT Makes Up Ground

AEW Dynamite beat out WWE NXT in Friday’s ratings report for the fourth week in a row, but NXT managed to make up some ground thanks to running a live show against AEW taped show from Chris Jericho’s cruise.

Dynamite emerged victorious with 871,000 viewers for their special episode taped during the “Chris Jericho Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Rager at Sea: Part Deux.” However, this is down from the 940,000 viewership scored for the Jan. 15 edition.

While NXT didn’t win, it did experience a jump in viewership with 769,000 for Wednesday. This was up from the 700,000 viewers for their Jan. 15 episode thanks, in part, to going live against AEW’s pre-taped show.

It was a similar story in the demographics, as AEW beat out NXT with a 0.35 score in the 18-49 demo compared to a 0.24. Reflecting the ratings, AEW’s score was a small drop from Jan. 15’s 0.38 score while NXT had a small bump from 0.21.

Dynamite saw the first title change in AEW history as Kenny Omega and Hangman Page beat SCU to win the AEW World Tag Team Championship. MJF continued to goad Cody ahead of their match at AEW Revolution on Feb. 29, but not without eating a pair of superkicks from the Young Bucks. Jon Moxley also emerged as the new no. 1 contender for Chris Jericho’s AEW World Title after beating PAC in the main event.

Wednesday’s edition of NXT served as the go-home show ahead of Worlds Collide on Saturday, ending in a massive brawl between Imperium and the Undisputed Era. The two teams will face off in an eight-man tag match on Saturday’s event. Keith Lee got one over on the Undisputed Era as well, beating Roderick Strong to become the new NXT North American Champion. The finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic were also set, as the team of Pete Dunne and Matt Riddle are set to face the Grizzled Young Veterans on the next episode of NXT.