Notes On Whether or Not EVOLVE 10th Anniversary Show Was A Counter To AEW Fight For The Fallen

As the wrestling world is more than aware, AEW Fight for the Fallen ran this past Saturday and WWE decided to run EVOLVE’s 10th anniversary show on the WWE Network at the same time. This drew complaints online, particularly from AEW fans and even some in AEW itself. Kenny Omega was angry that WWE tried to undermine a charity event and once Fight for the Fallen was over, Cody said that you can’t “counter program” AEW.

The latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the 10th anniversary show was not an attempt to counter program AEW, at least not from EVOLVE’s perspective. EVOLVE had the show, the talent and the 2300 Arena booked well in advance. The date was known privately before anything was booked and everything was booked before the date was publicly announced. The Philadelphia show happening when it did was not a WWE counter.

Of course, that still raises the question of if putting it on the Network was a counter or not, and that’s just a matter of opinion and speculation at this point. The Observer notes that WWE would have had production people in the area anyway, as Extreme Rules had always been scheduled for Philadelphia the night following the EVOLVE show. It also noted that WWE did push the EVOLVE show on its own programming (RAW and Smackdown) harder than it had even its own NXT Takeover specials in the past.