AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam witnesses a drop in viewership with Jon Moxley crowned new champion, former WWE Superstar's debut

AEW Dynamite's Grand Slam special episode witnessed a drop in viewership yesterday from the previous week's show.

This week featured Jon Moxley defeating Bryan Danielson for the AEW Championship. Another major moment as Saraya, FKA Paige in WWE, debuted in the promotion to confront Britt Baker and company.

There were two title changes at the event: Claudio Castagnoli dropped his ROH World Championship to Chris Jericho, and The Acclaimed became the new Tag Team Champions after defeating Swerve in our Glory.

According to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics, the episode performed decently as far as the ratings are concerned, but it was not at the level of last year's Grand Slam.

Thurston's post on Twitter revealed that Wednesday's episode witnessed an average of 1,039,000 viewers, which maintained the show's 1 million viewer streak. However, the numbers saw a 12% drop from last week. The key demographic also took a significant hit as the event was watched by 458,000 viewers aged 18-49, 10 percent less than last week.

AEW Dynamite last night on TBS (8-10pm):
1,039,000 viewers
P18-49 rating: 0.35
Ranking info coming soon
📊 patreon.com/wrestlenomics https://t.co/ebLd8o5mRO

When compared to last year's program, the numbers were disappointing. Last year's episode saw the debuting Bryan Danielson take on Kenny Omega. The episode garnered an average viewership of 1,273,000 - 19% more than this year's show.

The 18-49 demographic from this year's episode is even worse, as it has decreased by 27% from last year.

AEW celebrates the first anniversary of the inaugural Grand Slam

AEW made its first trip to Queens, New York, in 2021 as the inaugural Grand Slam took place at the Arthur Ashe Stadium last year.

The event featured a 30-min time limit draw between Kenny Omega and Bryan Danielson, while Malakai Black and MJF secured wins over Cody Rhodes and Brian Pillman Jr., respectively.

The promotion took to Twitter to celebrate the first anniversary of the historical event, which had a record-setting crowd of 20,177 fans.

On this day in #AEW history, AEW drew a record-setting crowd of 20,177 fans for its first Grand Slam event at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, NY. https://t.co/wQZHzzlWkp

Since its inception, the Jacksonville-based promotion has done a decent job of establishing itself as the only true competitor to WWE. With these events, the company hopes to continue the healthy competition and may even emerge as the number one wrestling promotion someday.

Do you think AEW has the capability to overtake WWE? Sound off in the comments section below!