.png)
Most wrestling fans will tell you; Wednesday night is the must-see wrestling night as you have AEW and NXT both running their shows providing us with fantastic entertainment and for 2-4 hours we as fans can shut out the world and enjoy some great wrestling.
But is it really must see and is it really helping wrestling take its place back into the fandom and become must watch TV. Let us take a dive down the rabbit hole and look.
NXT - Month by Month
February 2020 total 3,038,000
March 2020 total 2,626,000 (41,200 less)
April 2020 total 3,277,000 (651,000 more)
May 2020 total 2,590,000 (687,000 less)
June 2020 total 2,920,000 (330,000 more)
July 2020 total 3,504,000 including Great American Bash (584,000 more)
August 2020 total 3,049,000 (455,000 less)
September 2020 total 3,108,000 (59,000 more)
October 2020 total 2,810,000 including Halloween Havoc. (298,000 less)
November 2020 total 2,592.000 (218,000 less)
December 2020 total 3,367,000 (775,000 more)
January 2021 total 2,571,000 (796,000 less)
All shows, 12 month period total – 32,717,800 views.
Looking at the numbers NXT’s best month was July which included Great American Bash and did 3,504,000 views. Their worse month was January with 2,571,000 views. NXT has had 6 months under 3 million monthly views Jan, Nov, June, May, March. They were not able to get over 4 million in a month but, when you compare that to Smackdown they cover 4 million in 2 weeks and RAW is not far behind. The differences between the months are large as well with the biggest drop being between December and January with 796,000 less views.
AEW - Month by Month
February 2020 total 3,503,000
March 2020 total 3,423,000 (80,000 less)
April 2020 total 3,484,000 (61,000 more)
May 2020 total 2,914,000 (570,000 less)
June 2020 total 2,812,000 (102,000 less)
July 2020 total 3,869,000, Fyter Fest and Fight for the fallen (1,057,000 more)
August 2020 total 3,261,000 (608,000 less)
September 2020 total 5,115,000 (1,854,000 more)
October 2020 total 3,113,000 (2,002,000 less)
November 2020 total 3,043,000 (70,000 less)
December 2020 total 4,466,000; Winter is Coming, Holiday Bash and Brodie Lee Tribute. (1,423,000 more)
January 2021 total 3,012,000 New year’s smash (1,454,000 less)
Total views 42,015,000
Looking at AEW’s numbers, their best month was September with a massive 5,115,000 views, with their lowest views being June with 2,812,000. AEW’s biggest drop was between September and October with 2,002,000 less views. AEW only got over 4 million monthly views twice, but only had two months under 3 million.
Now let’s look at the month to month winner
AEW vs NXT monthly
Feb – AEW 465,000 more
March – AEW 797,000 more
April – AEW 207,000 more
May – AEW 324,000 more
June – NXT 108,000 more
July- AEW 365,000 more
August – AEW 212,000 more
September – AEW 2,007,000 more
October – AEW 303,000 more
November – AEW 451,000 more
December – AEW 1,099,000 more
January – AEW 441,000 more
Difference February 2020 to January 2021, 9,297,200 total views in favour of AEW
AEW lost the month of June which was their worse month and NXT’s best month. The biggest gap between the numbers was in September with AEW doing 2,007,000 more views then NXT and the closest gap was in June when NXT won with a 108,000 view difference. The month to month difference is all over the place but the gaps when AEW win are all over 200,000 views.
Now let’s look at total views for both shows.
Wednesday Night Wrestling Viewership
February 2020 total 6,541,000
March 2020 total 6,049,000 (492,000 less)
April 2020 total 6,761,000 (712,000 more)
May 2020 total 5,504,000 (1,257,000 less)
June 2020 total 5,732,000 ( 232,000 more)
July 2020 total 7,365,000 (1,633,000 more)
August 2020 total 6,049,000 (1,316,000 less)
September 2020 total 8,223,000 (2,174,000 more)
October 2020 total 5,923,000 (2,300,000 less)
November 2020 total 5,635,000 (288,000 less)
December 2020 total 7,833,000 (2,198,000 more)
January 2021 5,583,000 (2,250,000 less)
Total year views 74,732,800
September was a monster month with 8,223,000 views where May had the worse month with 5,504,000. The biggest drop between months happened between September and October with 2,300,000 less views.
It is noticeably clear from the data that AEW is getting more views than NXT, however the question I posed was is it must watch TV, well let’s compare it. Most fans will tell you RAW has been horrible so let us see if NXT and AEW together can out draw it.
RAW - Month by Month
February 2020 total 9,152,000
March 2020 total 10,682,000
April 2020 total 7,671,000
May 2020 total 7,096,000
June 2020 total 9,060,000
July 2020 total 6,492,000
August 2020 total 9,003,000
September 2020 total 6,903,000
October 2020 total 7,049,000
November 2020 total 8,672,000
December 2020 total 6,722,000
January 2021 total 7,620,000
Total views 96,122,000
Difference between RAW and Wednesday night 21,390,000. September and January Wednesday were able to defeat RAW but each other month RAW out drew the combined show.
Now let us look at Smackdown and see how they did against that.
Smackdown - Month by Month
February 2020 total 10,234,000
March 2020 total 9,976,000
April 2020 total 8,884,000
May 2020 total 8,254,000
June 2020 total 8,213,000
July 2020 total 9,436,000
August 2020 total 8,283,000
September 2020 total 8,312,000
October 2020 total 9,128,000
November 2020 total 8,551,000
December 2020 total 8,501,000
January 2021 total 10,581,000
Total views 103,353,000
The difference between Smackdown and Wednesday night is 28,620,200 for the year. September was the closest month to month with a difference of only 89,000 views. The biggest surprise here is that Smackdown is 7,231,000 views ahead of RAW.
As we can see Smackdown is the strongest show for the period with RAW second and Wednesday night last. However, it looks like Smackdown has been stable around the 8 million mark and RAW around 5-6 million while Wednesday is roughly doing close to RAW numbers.
So, to answer our question based on the numbers is Wednesday night must see based purely on numbers – Yes considering the shows are only still very new and already doing numbers that are beating or getting close to RAW and in September they nearly outdrew Smackdown and that is a big deal.
Starting out I knew Smackdown was going to be the biggest draw but how close it is too RAW is surprising. While the total yearly numbers are interesting.
We should be happy that wrestling had 274,207,800 views for the year and that is something we should celebrate. We should be encouraging those who are watching RAW and Smackdown to come check out what is on Wednesday.