Here's How the AEW/Impact Wrestling Crossover Performed in the Ratings

The biggest story in the professional wrestling world over the past eight days has been the surprise crossover between the All Elite Wrestling and Impact Wrestling promotions. Newly-crowned AEW World Champion Kenny Omega appeared on both programs this week, gloating over his victory against Jon Moxley before teasing his goal of "collecting" some of Impact's titles. We've already covered how Omega's appearance shattered viewership records for Impact on Twitch, but now let's take a look at how both shows did in the ratings.

Impact, now airing on AXS TV, saw a 33% increase in viewership with Tuesday's episode, hitting 221,000 viewers and a 0.08 rating. Meanwhile, the buzz surrounding Omega, Sting's first promo with the company and a loaded lineup announced ahead of time gave AEW Dynamite an audience of 995,000 viewers and a 0.45 rating. That's the show's best rating in the target demographic since Oct. 23, 2019, and is tied for its third-highest rating of all time (the record remains Dynamite's premiere episode from October 2019, 0.68).

NXT, coming off the well-received TakeOver: WarGames event, drew 659,000 viewers ad a 0.17 rating. In terms of the "battle" for the bigger audience, this was the largest margin of victory for AEW since March.

It's unclear just how far this crossover between the two companies will go. Previous reports have stated it was merely a one-off as a favor from Omega to Don Callis, but other reports have stated it will lead to matches like The Young Bucks vs. The Good Brothers. The Bucks admitted in a recent interview this idea was something they wanted to do for years.

"Two years ago, this is something Nick and I actually brought up and we wanted to get this going," Matt Jackson told the Living The Gimmick Podcast last week. "And for whatever reason, it just didn't work out. I don't know if that was more on our side or what, but we just couldn't get everyone to agree on what the creative would be. But when Nick and I were stopping at all the indy shows and popping up at shows, going to AAA and Mexico, that was one of the suggestions we had was what if we show up in Impact? This is something we've been whispering in Tony Khan's ear for two years. So we're all about collaboration and partnering with everyone and working together. This is what we've always done. Even back when we were with Ring of Honor and we got the Hardys to come in when they were apart of Impact, that was also apart of our plan. So this is something that we truly wanted to do for a very, very long time. And I guess the timing was right and we got done."

"It's still so early, I don't think we, all of us, collectively know what this means," he continued. I think we're just dipping our toes in right now and we're going to see what we can get out of it. But there are immediate plans that I can't exactly just give away right now. But my dream, if I had it my way, I just think about the possible dream matches. People are already hitting me up like, 'Oh my god, can you imagine if it was the Young Bucks and the Motor City Machine Guns 10 years later?' How can you not jump ahead and fantasize and fantasy book?"