AEW Dynamite With Shaq Draws Biggest Viewership of Year, NXT Sees Ratings Increase

– Showbuzz Daily has the overnight ratings for this week’s Wednesday Night Wars battle between AEW Dynamite and NXT. As many probably expected, AEW Dynamite was the winner this week and saw an increase in viewership numbers due to the appearance of NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, who got in the ring and teamed up with Jade Cargill against Cody Rhodes and Red Velvet. AEW Dynamite finished with 934,000 viewers this week, while WWE NXT finished with 692,000.

The appearance by Shaq wrestling in a match helped boost AEW to its largest viewership number of 2021 thus far. It’s also the first time AEW was able to break 900,000 viewers this year. The Last edition of Dynamite to draw over 900,000 viewers was the December 30 episode, which drew 977,000 viewers. Viewership was up just over 100,000 from last week’s audience number, which was 834,000.

NXT on USA Network did drop in viewership this week, but not by a lot. The show did fall just below 700,000 viewers this week, finishing with a viewership of 692,000 for Wednesday night. That’s down from 734,000 viewers from last week.

Interestingly, while viewership was up for this week’s Dynamite, the P18-49 demographic rating was slightly down. Dynamite averaged a 0.33 rating this week, which actually fell from last week’s 0.35 rating in the same key demo.

The good news for NXT is that ratings in the key demo were up for the show on Wednesday night. NXT increased from 0.18 to 0.20 in the key demo this week, drawing the second biggest number for NXT on USA in 2021 thus far.

AEW Dynamite fell out of the Top 5 for the Cable Top 150 rankings for this week, finishing at No. 6 compared to No. 5 for February 24. Thanks to the increase in numbers, NXT managed to break into the Top 20 this week and ranked No. 19, rising from last week’s No. 24 ranking. The Challenge: Double Agents on MTV topped the ratings for last night, drawing a 0.53 rating in the key demo. Meanwhile, The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC topped the viewership for the evening with 3.483 million viewers.

Additionally, the AEW Dynamite vs. NXT battles on Wednesday night are heavily rumored to be coming to an end soon. NXT is reportedly scheduled to move to Tuesday nights on the USA Network beginning April 13. This would effectively bring an end to the Wednesday Night Wars. The NXT move to Tuesday is said to be mainly caused by the shuttering of the NBC Sports Network and the shift of NHL programming to Wednesday nights on USA.

Here are the week-by-week numbers for the past year:

February 26th: AEW 0.30 (865,000 viewers), NXT 0.23 (717,000)
March 4th: AEW 0.35 (906,000 viewers), NXT 0.23 (718,000)
March 11th: AEW 0.26 (766,000 viewers), NXT 0.21 (697,000)
March 18th: AEW 0.35 (932,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (542,000)
March 25th: AEW 0.34 (819,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (669,000)
April 1: AEW 0.25 (685,000 viewers), NXT 0.15 (590,000)
April 8: AEW 0.26 (692,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (693,000)
April 15: AEW 0.25 (683,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (692,000)
April 22: AEW 0.25 (731,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (665,000)
April 29: AEW 0.27 (693,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (637,000)
May 6: AEW 0.28 (732,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (663,000)
May 13: AEW 0.23 (654,000 viewers), NXT 0.15 (604,000)
May 20: AEW 0.26 (701,000 viewers), NXT 0.13 (592,000)
May 27: AEW 0.32 (821,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (731,000)
June 3: AEW 0.29 (730,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (715,000)
June 10: AEW 0.23 (677,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (673,000)
June 17: AEW 0.28 (772,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (746,000)
June 24: AEW 0.22 (633,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (786,000)
July 1: AEW 0.29 (748,000 viewers), NXT 0.22 (792,000)
July 8: AEW 0.28 (715,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (759,000)
July 15: AEW 0.29 (788,000 viewers), NXT 0.14 (631,000)
July 22: AEW 0.32 (845,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (615,000)
July 29: AEW 0.30 (773,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (707,000)
August 5: AEW 0.36 (901,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (753,000)
August 12: AEW 0.32 (792,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (619,000)
August 19: AEW N/A, NXT 0.24 (853,000)
August 22: AEW 0.31 (755,000 viewers), NXT N/A
August 26: AEW N/A, NXT 0.24 (824,000)
August 28: AEW 0.29 (813,000 viewers), NXT N/A
September 1: AEW N/A, NXT 0.26, (849,000)
September 2: AEW 0.36 (928,000 viewers), NXT 0.04, (183,000)
September 8: AEW N/A, NXT 0.22 (838,000)
September 9: AEW 0.37 (1.016 million viewers), NXT N/A
September 16: AEW 0.34 (886,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (689,000)
September 22: AEW 0.26 (585,000 viewers), NXT N/A
September 23: AEW 0.32 (835,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (696,000)
September 30: AEW 0.33 (866,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (732,000)
October 7: AEW 0.31 (753,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (639,000)
October 14: AEW 0.30 (826,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (651,000)
October 21: AEW 0.30 (753,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (644,000)
October 28: AEW 0.31 (781,000 viewers), NXT 0.25 (876,000)
November 4: AEW 0.30 (717,000 viewers), NXT 0.14 (610,000)
November 11: AEW 0.30 (764,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (632,000)
November 18: AEW 0.37 (850,000 viewers), NXT 0.14 (638,000)
November 25: AEW 0.26 (710,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (712,000)
December 2nd: AEW 0.42 (913,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (658,000)
December 9nd: AEW 0.45 (995,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (659,000)
December 16th: AEW 0.32 (806,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (766,000)
December 23th: AEW 0.32 (775,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (698,000)
December 30th: AEW 0.40 (977,000 viewers), NXT 0.12 (586,000)
January 6th: AEW 0.25 (662,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (641,000)
January 13th: AEW 0.30 (762,000 viewers), NXT 0.14 (551,000)
January 20th: AEW 0.36 (854,000 viewers), NXT 0.15 (659,000)
January 27th: AEW 0.29 (754,000 viewers), NXT 0.21 (720,000)
February 3rd: AEW 0.32 (844,000 viewers), NXT 0.15 (610,000)
February 10th: AEW 0.29 (741,000 viewers), NXT 0.12 (558,000)
February 17th: AEW 0.31 (747,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (713,000)
February 24th: AEW 0.35 (831,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (734,000)
March 3rd: AEW 0.33 (934,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (692,000)