On Wednesday night, AEW Dynamite beat out WWE NXT in the ratings as the two went head-to-head in the 8 p.m. ET time slot. Wrestlenomics reported that Dynamite’s Blood & Guts special averaged 792,000 viewers on TBS, while NXT averaged 552,000 on The CW.
In the 18-49 demo, AEW’s lead was even bigger, as Dynamite drew a 0.24 rating to NXT’s 0.13, nearly twice as much. It’s the best rating Dynamite has done in that category since August 2024.
NXT usually airs on Tuesday nights but was moved to Wednesday this week due to the coverage of the U.S. midterm elections that The CW aired on Tuesday. Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer revealed that NXT had been told to “load it up” for the head-to-head.
That’s exactly what happened. The show featured appearances by John Cena and Cody Rhodes, and CM Punk challenged Grayson Waller for the NXT Championship. Waller successfully defended the title after Kevin Owens showed up.
Meanwhile, Dynamite featured both the men’s and women’s Blood & Guts matches from Jacksonville, Florida.
It was the first time since October 2022 that Dynamite won in total viewers going head-to-head with NXT. Back then, AEW’s show aired on a Tuesday instead of its normal Wednesday and averaged 752,000 viewers to WWE’s 676,000. After that, NXT won in total viewers the next five times the two went head-to-head, including the last one on October 6, with 532,000 viewers to Dynamite’s 495,000.
In November 2024, a similar situation happened when NXT was also moved to Wednesday due to the U.S. presidential election. But the result was reversed that time, with 619,000 viewers for NXT and 523,000 for Dynamite. This week, Dynamite was up 269,000 viewers from that night, and NXT was down 67,000.