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

Sting, Kenny Omega Shockers Boost AEW Dynamite to 2020 Ratings High

Published Thu, 03 Dec 2020 19:35:50 -0600

While last week may have come down to a viewership tie, there's no question about it this week. AEW Dynamite handily defeated WWE NXT in the ratings with their Winter is Coming episode. Showbuzz Daily still doesn't have their charts up yet, so we don't know where Dynamite and NXT ranked amongst the rest of cable's offerings last night, but F4WOnline does have the numbers so that we can compare them head-to-head, and folks, it isn't pretty.

Dr. Britt Baker enjoys a ratings trouncing from Dynamite to NXT almost as bad as the one she gave Leyla Hirsch (credit: All Elite Wrestling)

Normally, Bleeding Cool ace reporter "The Chadster" handles these ratings updates, but I'm filling in for him against his will this week because A) he had a complete mental breakdown yesterday after updated ratings reversed last week's NXT viewership win and B) frankly I just don't like the guy, and I'm sick of seeing that stupid picture of him in his dumb "bottom line" graphic. I'm just gonna say it: Chad is worse than Rich Johnston.

In any case, Dynamite drew 913,000 viewers last week, an impressive number though not as high as some of their unopposed numbers from earlier this year. However, in the 18-49 demographic is where Winter is Coming really shone, with Dynamite getting a .42 in the category, which is the highest it's been all year and dangerously close to current Monday Night Raw demo numbers.

The conclusion to draw: young people love Sting. Also, they love wrestling that's unpredictable, which Winter is Coming certainly delivered in the main event, which saw Kenny Omega win the AEW Championship from Jon Moxley and leave the arena with Don Callis of Impact Wrestling.

Sting = ratings (Credit: All Elite Wrestling)

On the other hand, NXT fared worse than last week, with 658,000 viewers and a.16 in the 18-49 demo. Interestingly, F4WOnline calculated the total viewership of both shows. It was up 100,000 over the 10-week rolling average, which means that additional viewers seemed to tune in to see the show after hearing about some of the big surprises. We don't know the quarterly breakdowns yet, but it seems reasonable to assume the show got a big bump when Sting showed up and probably kept it for the big main event, which ended Jon Moxley's AEW undefeated streak.

Kenny Omega stands tall with Don Callis after winning the AEW Championship, just as AWE Dynamite won the Wednesday Night Ratings Wars this week (Credit: All Elite Wrestling)

It will be further interesting to see what next week's ratings look like, as NXT will be coming off the NXT Takeover War Games PPV, AEW Dynamite will be dealing with the fallout of this week's events, and even Impact Wrestling could see a sizeable bump as Kenny Omega will speak for the first time since winning the title on that show next Tuesday.

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