Dave Meltzer says WWE‘s aggressive counterprogramming of AEW goes beyond winning the ratings war — it’s about eliminating AEW as leverage so the company can eventually push wrestler salaries back down.
Meltzer laid out the case on the August 7 Wrestling Observer Radio while discussing TKO’s latest quarterly earnings.
Meltzer said:
“They’re fighting AEW so hard, so that they can get back the control that they thought that they were going to have, and then they don’t have to be escalating salaries anymore and they’d have even bigger profits.
That’s their loss-leader mentality. It’s like, yeah, we’ll take some short-term money losses, but if we can get rid of them… If somehow we get rid of them as far as being major competition to us, maybe we can start asking guys to take paycuts because they don’t have the leverage of going somewhere else.
The ones that we see on TV on Raw and SmackDown, the ones on the main roster, they’re all doing great, far, far, far beyond their dreams of what they ever thought they would make in pro wrestling, partially because revenues increased and more so because AEW exists and it’s raised everyone’s salary.”
WrestlePurists @WrestlePurists Follow The same day and city as AEW All Out
2:31 PM · Jul 16, 2026The comments come as WWE is posting strong numbers. In Q2 2026, WWE generated $620.9 million in revenue and $368.3 million in Adjusted EBITDA — a 59% margin — with revenue up 12% year over year.
The counterprogramming isn’t slowing down, either. On August 30, the same day as AEW’s All In at Wembley Stadium, WWE is running two events out of Edinburg, Texas: AAA Ola de Calor at 11 a.m. CT and NXT Heatwave at 3 p.m. ET. All In is set to start at 11:30 a.m. ET, putting the shows in direct overlap.
Another head-to-head is already locked in for September 26. WWE has Worlds Collide at Allstate Arena, while AEW runs All Out at NOW Arena — both in the Chicago area.
Tony Khan called this kind of scheduling “predatory” in July, though he said he welcomes the competition.