"No way the WWE was gonna f***ing lose" - Wrestling veteran claims Vince McMahon never saw AEW as serious competition
During his time at the helm of WWE, Vince McMahon competed against various promotions. Despite many believing AEW defeated NXT during the "Wednesday Night Wars," Jim Cornette recently claimed that McMahon never saw the young promotion as competition.
AEW first broke into the scene in 2019 and was quickly compared to WWE. The fledgling promotion gained a tremendous amount of attention by hiring many of McMahon's former employees. The two promotions then dived into a "war" after both shows began airing on Wednesday Nights.
During the most recent edition The Jim Cornette Experience, the former wrestling manager weighed in on Triple H's recent statements surrounding the AEW x NXT war and Vince McMahon's role in it.
"If Vince McMahon had really wanted to wage a full-on war and put them out of business, every WWE Superstar was available to pop in to NXT. We never saw Roman Reigns wander into the NXT program. It was a way to put a stumbling block in the path of this new upstart promotion," Cornette said. (01:13 onward).
Cornette continued, claiming that regardless of the numbers, WWE still walked away with a victory.
"There was really no way the WWE was gonna f***ing lose, they couldn’t – they didn’t look bad! Only in the eyes of the AEW fans who are just blind to the whole thing. It never looked bad that they lost the timeslot rating by 200 000 people, when it was the flagship show of the new promotion with every major star they had on it against the C-show! And the difference was a few hundred thousand!" (02:08 onward).
Triple H x AEW x NXT #WWECastle https://t.co/oOXQ3Q98DD
Now that Vince McMahon is retired, can Triple H continue this war and ultimately win it for WWE?
Missed out on AEW All Out 2022? Catch up on the pay-per-view results here.
Jim Cornettte doesn't believe Vince McMahon dismantled NXT because of the brand's performance during the "war" with AEW
Following the "Wednesday Night Wars", NXT ended up changing its time slot and rebranded as NXT 2.0. A plethora of stars and backstage personnel were also released during this period. Due to this, it's largely believed that Vince McMahon punished Triple H and NXT for "losing the war."
Continuing in the same episode, Cornette shared why he believed that NXT was so ruthlessly changed into its "2.0" version.
"Vince didn’t dismantle NXT because they didn’t beat AEW in the ratings – that was just to give them some aggravation and to keep a few hundred thousand people from watching AEW. Vince dismantled NXT because he went down there and saw a bunch of f***ing Johnny Garganos!" (02:45 onward).
Remember the time when 46 year old Edge teased choosing going after 39 year old Finn Balor's "developmental" championship at WrestleMania after winning the Royal Rumble?
Or the time Charlotte Flair actually did it?
NXT was never developmental when competing with AEW. https://t.co/HxJtZn7EoB
Over the past month, Triple H has brought back a handful of the stars that Vince McMahon released. Interest has clearly increased, but is this enough to completely overshadow AEW?
Please credit The Jim Cornette Experience and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.
We recommend that you check out this video where Tony Schiavone discusses whether AEW can ever surpass WWE!