AEW on TNT: The Latest News On Start Time, Time Slot

With All Elite Wrestling presenting Fyter Fest this Saturday night, we are one step closer to the upstart wrestling company starting television on TNT this fall.

We've known that the show will air on either Tuesday nights or Wednesday nights, with the latest reports having noted that Wednesdays are most likely. AEW did trademark both Tuesday Night Dynamite and Wednesday Night Dynamite.

In this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer notes that Wednesday night will indeed by the night. He goes on to note the start date for the show as October 2nd and says that the most likely time slot will be 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m, Eastern. The Twitter account @fightoracle first broke the news that AEW would debut on TNT the first week of October.

The October 2nd date is interesting as it is two days before WWE premieres SmackDown on FOX. According to Meltzer, WWE on FOX are making plans to debut two new cameras during their initial broadcast, as well as bringing in numerous celebrities to sit in the crowd with the show emanating from Los Angeles. Undoubtedly, they'd like to make AEW's show two days earlier look minor league compared to SmackDown on FOX.

As we have noted in regards to the day AEW will air, Tuesday nights would be a conflict during the second half of the NBA season as TNT expands their NBA coverage to both Tuesday and Thursday nights in the spring, but that's something that could be worked around after the show has been on the air for several months versus AEW debuting on Thursday nights and immediately dealing with NBA pre-emptions upon the NBA season beginning a couple of weeks later at the end of October.

Wednesdays, which appear to be the plan now, will also be a problem eventually once the NBA postseason starts as TNT does air NBA playoff games on Wednesday evenings, so there is no foolproof night for 12 months of the year on that network. However, when things begin in October, Tuesday and Wednesday should be safe.