Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: aew, dynamite, NXT, ratings, Raw, recaps, wednesday night wars, wrestling, wwe

AEW Dynamite Gained Viewers for Brodie Lee Tribute Show

Not that ratings had anything to do with the motivation behind putting on what even a diehard NXT fan like The Chadster has to admit was a touching and beautiful tribute show, AEW Dynamite this week drew almost a million viewers for its special episode celebrating the life of Brodie Lee. It looks like many viewers tuned out of WWE NXT to watch the show, as NXT's viewership was way down this week as well.

AEW Dynamite Rating and Viewership Up, WWE NXT Rating and Viewership Down

The official numbers from ShowBuzz daily are not out yet, but in today's edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer revealed what the early numbers look like. According to Meltzer, AEW drew 997,000 viewers with a .40 in the 18-49 demographic. NXT, on the other hand, drew just 586,000 viewers and a .12 in 18-49.

NXT put on a regular show headlined by a North American Championship rematch between Leon Ruff and Johnny Gargano. The show also featured the reveals of the winners of the 2020 NXT Year-End Awards. AEW Dynamite this week had a card of matches all involving The Dark Order in some way, booked to pay tribute to Lee and to honor his family, in particular his son Brodie, who was at ringside for the entire show and got involved in the matches. At the end of the night, Brodie was awarded the TNT Championship as his father was declared champion for life. AEW will design a new belt, retiring the old one in Lee's memory. The show also featured tributes from Lee's colleagues and videos about Lee himself.

In an additional twist, Meltzer credited Lee's death for the increase in WWE Raw's ratings this week, writing:

Given that the Brodie Lee story got a general public response at a similar level to deaths of Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage and Roddy Piper, and more than Dusty Rhodes, and all of those deaths led to significant increases in the rating of the following Raw, that probably explains the increase, which is also why the company should have done a video package for him, because of the enormity of the story.

The Bottom Line 'Cause Chad Said So

Normally, The Chadster would be upset to see NXT lose in the ratings but under these circumstances, The Chadster can put aside his beef with AEW for beating NXT in the ratings and instead thank them for the catharsis provided by that tribute show.

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