Wednesday Night Wars 07/01/2020 Ratings

It's official. Momentum is now on NXT's side as it garnered more viewers than Dynamite for a second week in a row. This makes it a winning streak of two for the black and gold brand in terms of the audience size. (See graph above.) Dynamite still drew a higher 18-49 demographics rating than NXT as usual, but the WWE show is definitely heading in the right direction in its attempt to even out the win-loss record for the Wednesday Night Wars. Here are the details.

• For the third week in a row, NXT's viewership increased. It went up from last week's 786,000 viewers to this week's 792,000 viewers. That's a minute increase of 0.8%. The show's 18-49 demographics rating, on the other hand, went up significantly. It went up from 0.19 last week to 0.22 this week.

• Dynamite's ratings took a big dip last week. But with Fyter Fest, the show made a big comeback. Its audience grew from 633,000 last week to 748,000 this week. That's a huge jump of 18.2%. The AEW show's 18-49 demographics rating also went up significantly. It jumped from 0.22 last week to 0.29 this week.

AEW tried to put its best foot by presenting its Fyter Fest pay-per-view as this week's and next week's episodes of Dynamite. To counteract this, WWE labeled these two week's episodes of NXT as the Great American Bash, a pay-per-view name that has been used for decades in the world of wrestling. WWE then filled the card with high profile matches, including one with wrestlers from Raw and Smackdown. And to WWE's credit, their plan worked. Although this week's NXT didn't see a huge jump in the ratings, it did continue to build upon the slow but steady increase in viewership that the show has been experiencing in the last few weeks. And although Fyter Fest did give Dynamite a very substantial bump in the ratings, it just wasn't enough to overtake NXT in terms of the audience size.

Next week's ratings will be equally interesting. WWE will be presenting part two of the Great American Bash while AEW will be doing the same with part two of Fyter Fest. If NXT comes out ahead again, it will show that a large part of the wrestling audience is more interested in the loaded NXT card than one on Dynamite. If that happens, the question becomes whether WWE can keep that momentum going somehow. After all, it is impossible to consistently put on the same big-name performers without evetually boring fans. New storylines always need to be developed along with new talent to keep fans interested.

As for Raw and Smackdown this week, the ratings for the two shows headed in drastically different directions for some reason.

• Although Raw experienced an unusually high ratings boost during the last two weeks, it's audience size dropped again this week to its second lowest ever value. It fell 9.7%, decreasing from 1,922,333 viewers last week to 1,735,000 this week. Similarly, its 18-49 demographics rating fell to its second lowest value. It went down from 0.53 last week to 0.48 this week.

• Smackdown's ratings went sharply in the opposite direction. Its number of viewers jumped from 2,072,000 last week to 2,174,000 this week. That's a very healthy increase of 4.9%. Despite that increase, though, the FOX show's 18-49 demographics rating remained at 0.5 for the fourth week in a row.

With the tide seemingly turning in the Wednesday Night Wars, NXT's win-loss record is now 7-31-1 for viewership and 1-38 for the 18-49 demographic. In turn, Dynamite's win-loss record is now 31-7-1 for viewership and 38-1 for the 18-49 demographic. Unlike the past few months, NXT now has the momentum with a streak of two wins in a row.