Wednesday Night Wars 12/04/2019 Ratings

Last week, I said the tide may be turning for NXT. Well, it looks like I spoke too soon. NXT's winning streak in the Wednesday Night Wars was stopped at two, as Dynamite retook the lead in the ratings this week. It's not all sunshine and rainbows on the AEW side, though, since their numbers weren't particularly strong. Dynamite barely won by a mere 6,000 viewers.

As seen in the chart above, the ratings for both NXT and Dynamite improved this week. So last week's holiday weekend definitely took a toll on the ratings. Dynamite's vierwership went from 663,000 last week to 851,000 this week, a gain of 28.4%. With NXT, the viewership grew from 810,000 to 845,000. That's a gain of 4.3%. Obviously, Dynamite rebounded big time from last week. But because last week had such low numbers, this rebound isn't as impactful as it sounds. In fact, if we exclude last week's numbers as an exception due to the holiday, Dynamite's ratings are actually sliding. (Two weeks ago, Dynamite had 893,000 viewers compared to this week's 851,000.) For the 18-49 demographic ratings, Dynamite's went up from 0.26 last week to 0.32 this week, and NXT's rose from 0.24 to 0.29. So as usual, Dynamite continues to dominate in that department. But again, this 0.32 is not as high as Dynamite's 18-49 rating from 2 weeks ago. So all in all, Dynamite's numbers seem to be on a downswing.

Ratings aside, Dynamite delivered a solid episode as always. One of the highights was the opening bout pitting the Young Bucks and Dustin Rhodes against Pround and Powerful and Sammy Guevara. That match was simply fun to watch. (It's amazing how wonderful Dustin Rhodes has become since joining AEW.) In addition to the great wrestling, this episode also included great interview segments. The one with Chris Jericho had me laughing. The one with Code Rhodes had me looking forward to new storylines. Even Jon Moxley's one liner during Joey Janela's interview had me chuckling. So overall, it was definitely an entertaining Dynamite.

NXT was no slouch this week either. Keith Lee continued to prove that he is a star, and it is obvious that WWE managment recognizes this as well from his storyline with the Undisputed Era. In addition, Mauro Ranallo was back on the mic, and his commentary really helped the show flow smoothly. And unlike NXT's big brothers Raw and Smackdown, the actual wrestling matches on the show really delivered. They just somehow seemed to be missing the "fun factor" that AEW has been able to incorporate into their matches. Perhaps it stems from the energy of the crowd.

Dynamite was barely able to eke out a victory this week. So at this point, the two shows are practically neck and neck, and it could be anyone's game next week. There is already a cruiserweight championship match announced for next week's NXT, which might give WWE the edge. So we'll see if NXT can go back to their winning ways next week.