Still not entirely sure how 2.0 is supposed to be better than it was. I suppose the real gauge will be if any of these guys are actually utilized on the main roster, because if not then they put in a lot of work for no real purpose.

It's a tad scummy to thrust a development style show on USA. I'm sure they didn't pay for this version of the product. Such a format is certainly more suited for the Network. A part of me still wants them to revert back to the "black and gold" brand. Then agan, I was never a regular viewer of the show.

I'm with Gertner. It should've stayed on the Network and been developmental. It feels weird when they say guys/girls are being "promoted" from there to RAW/SD because WWE is presenting the show on the same level by airing it on USA.

If you want to keep the feel of the "next generation" like the original show [kinda] was, it probably shouldn't be on TV.

When the show first moved to USA they even moved Charlotte to NXT and had the NXT roster go over Raw and Smackdown in the main event of Survivor Series. It made no sense.

Meltzer reports year to year RAW is down 30 percent in 18-49 and 38 percent in 18-34

That was handed to them by circumstance. The Saudi shenanigans happened, so NXT talent were brought in to fill up SmackDown. This was right around Survivor Series. It was a one-off story, where had they had NXT lose, people would have complained that NXT was buried.

I still don’t see where this idea that having Charlotte go to NXT for a brief spell was loading it up. If they really wanted to load up NXT, they could have used Daniel Bryan, Rey Mysterio, Ricochet, Kevin Owens, Asuka and a whole bunch of other main roster talent that the hardcore audience values more. The narrative that WWE really tried their hardest to stomp out AEW just doesn’t hold up.

As for NXT: The show brings in money from USA. It may not do gangbusters, but they also wouldn’t want to overexpose their young talent. It’s a tightrope act. I’d rather they moved NXT back to the Network and/or Hulu and used the USA slot for a different show. But given that NXT does have a presence on the Network, it’s quite possible the show isn’t the complete failure for WWE and NBC Universal that Meltzer and minds make it out to be.

If they wanted to keep NXT on USA without going back to the boutique hardcore fan servicing product, I think there’s a line between black and gold and 2.0 that they can hit. Mix in young developmental guys with experienced vets, like NXT initially was. I used to love it when Aiden English would wrestle Rob Van Dam and Sheamus. Or that brief stint you got Cesaro down there. But that might be the way they are going with them just promoting the old Black and Gold as babyfaces in the War Games match, apparently. They could be resting the concept and introducing elements of it being developmental before they steer it in a more synthesized direction.

:roll:

So because they had to fill out part of the roster for a show or two with NXT stars on account of the Saudi thing that forced their hand to make an entire invasion angle that culminated on one of their biggest shows of the year and NXT had to win the “war” because otherwise... the internet would have complained?

And why the hell would they have put Charlotte, their biggest female star to a casual audience, on NXT and made her champion at this same time? Was that somehow forced by the Saudi ordeal too? They were trying to make it a legit 3rd brand by presenting it to their main audience as on par with Raw and Smackdown. And it was dumb.

To the large majority of the Raw/Smackdown audience, some indy guys came in, went over the guys they watch every week and then vanished. Lol

There wasn’t really a war, dude. It was a short-term angle. Hence why it ended short-term. Yes, people absolutely would have complained if NXT was sent packing. 100%. People are complaining that they won.

There a bunch of reasons to put Charlotte in a different environment. A fresh use for Charlotte herself. A chance to look at Rhea Ripley. Taking one NXT program and giving it the Mania stage to encourage people to check it out (not a giant marketing campaign to go all-out). I don’t get how someone sees Charlotte in NXT and goes “Holy shit, the WWE are REALLY trying here!” I feel like I’m repeating myself, but it makes no sense. A proper Raw/NXT crossover? Sure. That’d be them hot-shotting both sides. But sending Charlotte to NXT for a temporary spell? No.

The whole idea that the WWE were desperate as shit to stop AEW (And FAILED! Lol!) is an AEW/Dave Meltzer fiction. I heard a YouTube clip from Dave and in the same show he said both that the WWE was trying to load up NXT to destroy Dynamite, and that WWE didn’t promote the show. People want to have their cake and eat it in numerous different ways, because WWE =bad, AEW = good.

Charlotte showing up for a program in NXT is the WWE moving heaven and earth to crush AEW. Cody doing moonsaults off cages in build-ups to PPVs isn’t hot-shotting. WWE drops an angle, it’s “Stupid WWE and their bad storytelling.” AEW does it and it’s “long-term storytelling.” The dialogue is so skewered, and that’s always been one of my biggest problems with it.

The WWE could have had Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton and whoever the fuck they wanted on NXT in that slot every week and it would have been fair. Charlotte, The Revival and a one-off appearance from Sasha Banks (who is probably the biggest mover there), is not them taking the gloves off.

Also, can anyone dispute my assertion that it is possible NXT 2.0 does way better than perceived to when you factor in Peacock numbers? Serious question. For all I know, it doesn’t even have a Network presence anymore. But if it does, who is to say that those numbers don’t see it overtake Dynamite in terms of audience? What indicators do we have there?

The drop in audience since the move from black and gold to the 2.0 aesthetic and direction is obviously not preferred. I mean, you’d want to stay steady, maybe even see an increase. But radical changes like that are going to generate attention and then likely cause a disconnect between the previous audience and a new one. Do we know the timeframe placed on this to solidify its own following?

It’s fun to speculate. Believe me, I have so much fun with the AEW numbers every week. But does anyone actually have a clue how well NXT 2.0 does overall, and what its actual value to NBC Universal is?

Didn't Keith Lee have "a good showing" in that Survivor Series match and then disappear back to NXT for months? What a weird turn of events.

Keith Lee may have disappeared back to NXT because he was on NXT at the time.

872k for Dynamite. Very surprised they saw a slight increase from the previous week. Still a very poor number though.

Stuck in the 800s

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AEW Dynamite last night on TNT:<br>872,000 viewers<br>P18-49 rating: 0.33 (about 430,000 viewers)<br><br>��More demos &amp; analysis: <a href="https://t.co/A77xrNgSgw">https://t.co/A77xrNgSgw</a> <a href="https://t.co/xkEwUW0oIC">pic.twitter.com/xkEwUW0oIC</a></p>&mdash; Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1469051814825840640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yes

The Royal Rumble too

Oooooooo


R.I.P

And 499k for Rampy the Show that Tried.

It seems like every wrestling show, minus SD, is in a ratings slump. Not great!

RAW, NXT, Dynamite, Rampage, Impact, MLW all in the mud

^ Last time I looked at MLW ratings since it moved to VICE it was something like 14k viewers. Hopefully they've gone up since then.

Why do you keep mentioning people complaining? Do you actually think Vince put NXT over to avoid the internet complaining? If not then how is it relevant? I’m saying it was a dumb idea. If you think it was done to avoid the internet complaining then it was an even dumber idea. If you don’t think that’s why it was done then what’s your point?

Charlotte heading over at the same time COULD have been for reasons other than trying to legitimize it as a 3rd brand. The fact that it coincided with NXT winning a battle for brand supremacy out of the blue though...

The ratings do not matter because no matter what they get, Tony Khan will brag/spin it, as will the dirt sheet writers on his payroll.

Too much wrestling on TV since NXT moved to Tuesday and Rampage debuted

I think you are right. The market feels oversaturated.

It’s felt that way for a while. Couple that with the fact that “epic” shit has to happen constantly to keep people tuning in and it’s just hours upon hours of “epic” shit that then starts to feel commonplace. And you can’t dial it back.

season one and two of NXT was the best. I miss pro's and rookies, NXT should b WWE'S VERSION of the challenge.

Three Words:

Season Three Kaitlyn :drool:

It won't happen, but NXT reverting to the rookies and pros format would be great.

My point is that the shitty but profitable Saudi deal forced their hand. They felt like they had to use NXT talent around the Survivor Series. That led to them getting used at the actual show. They decided to have them go over instead of “burying” them (as the internet erroneously uses the term).

Charlotte’s NXT run came later. That started with the Royal Rumble, which was 2 months later. I can’t remember if she even went to NXT full-time or was just slumming around Raw sometimes showing up there, or if that started with her NXT Title win or what. But they didn’t really coincide.

Nothing about the Saudi deal forced them to book an NXT vs Raw/Smackdown program for Survivor Series. You’re just saying what they decided to do and using “Saudi deal” as an excuse without explanation. And you still haven’t given a reason why NXT went over other than “people would have complained/erroneously accused them of burying them.”

I said they felt like their hand was forced. Could they have done Daniel Bryan vs. Fandango or whatever the fuck was available on the SmackDown side at the time? Sure, probably. But they had half (maybe more) of their roster over in Saudi Arabia unable to make it back to SmackDown so they used NXT talent (and Pat McAfee in the booth). If they had the talent back, they probably wouldn’t have done it at all.

Once NXT were in it, they decided to put them over at Survivor Series. Was the intent to give them a little boost? Sure, probably. But what were they supposed to do? Have Raw and SmackDown demolish them and send them back to Orlando in a crate? They put some of their guys over because that’s the situation they were in — right, wrong or otherwise. It wasn’t some massive grand plan to make NXT the dominant brand in all of WWE. It doesn’t mean that NXT was forever going to have a heavy presence on either Raw or SmackDown. It was a glorified cameo. And the fill-ins got the wins, which is pretty standard.

It also could have been more about the other shows losing. Not that that went anywhere. But to pretend that the WWE’s mind in this was “NXT must crush AEW!” is very markish.

I remember a time when Noid explained how ratings and wrestling trends worked in South Asia. When I had something to say about it, he suggested that he had friends from the subcontinent. I guess they know more.

Logic loopholes so big could make the titanic sink in a minute flat.

re: NXT going back to being Network-exclusive - it should also go back to being a one hour show. Secondary (or third...dary?) shows shouldn't be two hours.

Tertiary

Actually, you said their hand WAS forced. Multiple times. But alright. So now they just FELT LIKE their hand was forced. The Saudi deal made them FEEL LIKE their hand was forced to have main roster vs NXT matches one night on Smackdown. Not the worst thing in the world. Now make the leap from there to having to do a brand war between the main roster and developmental on a major PPV/Network special.

And once this bad idea train was rolling... While your “demolish them and send them home in a crate” is an exaggeration yes, your developmental guys should not be booked to win a “battle for brand supremacy” over your main roster. Lol

Unless of course you’re trying to push your developmental brand as a legit on-par brand with the rest... Which is dumb... Which is my point.

Maybe... I’m trying a nice approach here though. Lol

This re-re-brand NXT as developmental again has given me a thread idea so I don't have to bury it in this mess.

Yeah. That would also allow them to not have to put guys on every week to fill time. I know they’ll never go back to a traditional developmental system but they should find a nice middle ground between making money off of it and not overexposing guys before they’re even ready for the main roster. Even if the exposure is to a relatively small portion of the main roster audience.

Playing Devil's advocate, I dont think he means the financial deal with Saudi, I think he means the Saudi plane situation. With most of the roster stuck in Saudi Arabia, Smackdown had a very limited number of wrestlers who either did not go on that trip, or got out on a private jet.

Instead of putting on a show with a limited amount of people, they had the NXT roster fill in. The timeframe with Survivor Series coming up was the easiest storyline to explain kayfabe why they were there.

After that, Vince booked them the way he did because that is what Vince wanted to do at the time. It certainly was not a long term plan. All they got out of it afterwards was Keith Lee's surprise Rumble entry, and Shayna and Rhea putting over Becky and Charlotte at Mania.