WWE‘s programming set for this Sunday in Texas has again drawn strong criticism just hours before AEW All In, which will be held at Wembley Stadium in London.
AAA Ola de Calor starts at 12 PM ET, followed immediately by NXT Heatwave at 3 PM ET at the Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg. All In, meanwhile, begins at 1 PM ET. In practice, the WWE-linked events will occupy virtually the entire window of AEW’s top pay-per-view of the year.
On a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer harshly criticized the strategy. In the journalist’s view, the competing programming will have minimal impact on All In sales, possibly taking away only between 1,000 and 5,000 buys from the event.
“Whatever the mentality is, I don’t think it’s going to hurt. I don’t think it’s going to make a 5,000-buy difference, and 5,000 may even be liberal. It might be 1,000. It’s going to make no difference whatsoever to the live crowd. It’s not going to make any difference to the pay-per-view, and they’re not going to have a better show.”
Meltzer went even further, stating that WWE would be avoiding putting a major event featuring its main roster directly against All In, leaving NXT and AAA exposed to potentially low numbers.
“It’s a bad look in so many ways. I mean, it’s smart that they don’t put their main roster against it because you don’t want your main roster looking bad. The AAA guys are the sacrificial lambs, and the NXT guys are the sacrificial lambs. I get the mentality for what they’re doing, but they’re going out there and being sacrificed.”
The observation, however, does not mean the main roster is completely absent. Ola de Calor will feature names like Penta, Rey Fenix, Dragon Lee, Damian Priest, and The War Raiders, plus Dominik Mysterio in a contract signing.