WWE NXT vs AEW Dynamite: Who won the Wednesday Night Wars? (27th November 2019)
With WWE NXT passing AEW Dynamite's viewership figures last week heading into WWE Survivor Series, this week's shows may just have been the most hotly anticipated in midweek wrestling since the 'Wednesday Night Wars' began.
Last week, WWE's Black and Gold brand brought in a whopping 916,000 on the go-home show heading into a weekend of NXT TakeOver: WarGames and WWE Survivor Series, while AEW finished up just 23,000 viewers below on 893,000 - but how would both brands retaliate? Particularly with NXT winning the war of WWE brand supremacy at Survivor Series, all eyes were on both shows to see who would put on the "best" show this week.
WWE NXT
This week's episode of NXT on the USA Network opened up with one of the breakout stars of the weekend in Keith Lee, teaming with Dominik Dijakovic to take on two of the hardest working men in the business today, Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly of The Undisputed Era. Or at least, that's how the first portion of the match went, before Strong replaced Fish due to medical reasons. Regardless, this was a colossal clash to kick off the black and gold brand, but no title change would occur - only amazing in-ring action and the most meme-able gif of 2019 with Cole was flattened by Keith Lee.
Another championship would be defended, too, as Lio Rush put his NXT Cruiserweight Championship on the line against Akira Tozawa. The action was incredibly high-paced, as one may predict, with Rush winning a pretty lengthy encounter.
Other matches on NXT involved Shane Thorne vs Mansoor, with the Saudi Arabian Superstar picking up the win, and Dakota Kai reinforced her newfound character by getting disqualified when she hit Candice LeRae with Tegan Nox's knee brace - bringing the other breakout star of the weekend, Rhea Ripley, to the ring.
Xia Li would also finish off Vanessa Borne quickly, before NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler would come to the ring flanked by Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir to attack Li, with Ripley making the save after deafening chants from Full Sail, with The Nightmare chasing off the trio before claiming she'll be taking the Queen of Spades' title.
A first-time match would close the show, with Finn Balor taking on Tommaso Ciampa. As most NXT fans would expect, this was an absolute classic that saw the pair brawl outside the ring in a brutal, yet technical, encounter. Adam Cole rushed into the ring, and Ciampa fought him off as Finn Balor stole the NXT Championship and tried to hit Ciampa with the belt, only to miss - but Blackheart ran into an enziguiri and subsequently the 1916 for Balor to pick up the win, but The Prince would make sure only he stood tall to close out the night, flattening Adam Cole with a Pele Kick.