AEW Dynamite crushes WWE NXT in viewership and TV ratings on Dec. 9
Last night, WWE NXT hoped to close the gap with AEW Dynamite after a strong NXT TakeOver: WarGames on Sunday. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. In fact, AEW extended the gap between the two shows last night. The hype the company generated from "Winter is Coming" last week translated to a lot more people checking out AEW (instead of NXT) last night.
This week's edpisode of AEW saw a large increase in their ratings with 995,000 viewers. This increase is a sizable jump up from 913,000 last week. Even coming off of TakeOver, NXT only saw a small boost with 659,000 viewers, which was up from 658,000.
AEW Dynamite was the number two show on cable last night for men in the 18-49 demo
In the all-important 18-49 demographic, AEW once again came out on top with a sizable increase from 0.42 to 0.45. This figure topped last week's rating as their highest demo of 2020. Meanwhile, NXT saw a slight rise in the demo from last week, as they went from 0.16 to 0.17. While NXT might have lost the week, at least their ratings climbed.
In more good news for the black-and-gold brand, NXT did make the top 50 on cable, placing 37th for the evening. AEW Dynamite came in second overall on cable for the evening. Funnily enough, they only lost to former WWE wrestler Lio Rush and the MTV show, "Challenge: Double Agent."
This week's AEW Dynamite saw both "The Icon" Sting and NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal speak for the very first time on the show. It opened with the AEW World Tag Team Champions, The Young Bucks in tag team action against The Hybrid 2 (TH2.) The show closed with MJF and Orange Cassidy in a match for the Dynamite Diamond Ring.
Meanwhile, NXT featured the returns of both Finn Balor and Karrion Kross. The show was headlined by Raquel González facing with Ember Moon as the build to NXT's New Year's Evil began.