Backstage Note on Why WWE Didn’t Load Up NXT In Head-to-Head Battle With AEW on Tuesday

Ever since the lovingly remembered Monday Night Wars, wrestling promotions have tried to outdo the competing show whenever there’s a head-to-head broadcast. AEW seldom deliberately goes head-to-head with WWE, as they’re probably not going to win that battle among the general viewing public (as opposed to just hardcore wrestling fans). Yet when they do, usually against NXT, NXT tends to stack the deck with higher-profile match-ups, to crush the competition and keep viewers from “touching that dial,” as older generations of commentators used to say.

This week, though, NXT didn’t do that against AEW on Tuesday. Why not? The Wrestling Observer Newsletter has an answer: Nick Khan didn’t give the order to do so. Usually, he’s the one to make the call, but according to Dave Meltzer, nobody seems to know why he didn’t this time. It’s unlikely to have been an act of benevolence; rather, it might have been a cost-benefit analysis. NXT has a pattern of beating AEW in time slot wars regardless of content so, as a certain TKO board member might say, “It doesn’t matter!” what the specific match-ups on the show are.

In NXT’s main event, Lady Shani won a women’s battle royal to earn a Women’s Title shot, and unmask to reveal herself as Wren Sinclair. AEW Dynamite saw Kazuchika Okada challenge for Will Ospreay’s World Title.

Maybe Nick Khan knew he couldn’t compete with that main event for quality in any way, so he had to trust in brand loyalty.