Triple H hosted a media conference call on Wednesday morning to discuss the NXT TakeOver: Portland event this Sunday. However the first question wasn’t about the show itself, but rather NXT’s ongoing battle for ratings against All Elite Wrestling’s weekly Dynamite show on TNT. NXT has lost to AEW in overall viewership and ratings in the key 18-34 demographic every single week since the start of 2020, but “The Game” didn’t sound discouraged. The shows started going head-to-head as two-hour live shows back on September 2, and NXT managed to briefly pull ahead once the NXT roster started feuding with Raw and SmackDown stars leading up to Survivor Series.
“It’s about the long game. And what we have to do is get to the people in the younger demos,” he said. “… When you look at NXT on USA and you look at the numbers, it’s very similar to a Raw number, it’s very similar to a USA number, because that’s where we’re promoted and that’s where we’re seen. But the long game is building up the brand that you’ve built. I think that what we have done is come in and proven the in-ring product… from bell-to-bell is better than anybody.
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“Now you start adding in a bit more things. You start adding in a bit more entertainment, a bit more variety, you start adding in some other things. I think it’s no different than establishing a character within an individual show,” he added. “When I say it’s for the long game, that’s what it’s for.”
Check out the full card for NXT TakeOver: Portland below:
- NXT Championship: Adam Cole vs. Tommaso Ciampa
- NXT Women’s Championship: Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair
- NXT Tag Team Championships: The Undisputed Era vs. The BroserWeights
- NXT North American Championship: Keith Lee vs. Dominik Dijakovic
- Finn Balor vs. Johnny Gargano
- Dakota Kai vs. Tegan Nox (Street Fight)
AEW announced back in mid-January that it had signed a new contract extension with WarnerMedia that will keep the show on TNT through (at least) 2023 and add a second show to the network.
“When we launched AEW one year ago, we wanted to start a revolution that would disrupt the wrestling business, but everyone said that it would take a strong weekly television partner to make AEW real in the eyes of everyone — above all, the fans,” AEW president Tony Khan said in a press release at the time. “What virtually no one realized at the time was Kevin Reilly and TNT were committed to this very same movement from Day One, and their belief in us made it possible for AEW to think and act big from the start. Here we are, only three months into Wednesday Night Dynamite, and now we’ve been extended through 2023! We’re now making the ultimate statement that the team of AEW and TNT is here to stay and to bring fans more of the great wrestling that the fans demand and deserve.”
