It had been a more subdued month of October, compared to the crazier happenings in August and September. Both brands had solid events all month long, all the while the US Presidential election loomed large over everything, at least here in the states. Debates, political commentary, breaking news, stock market seesawing, candidates giving speeches from sea to shining sea, COVID drama, cats and dogs living together, MASS HYSTERIA!
It’s been a time, let me tell you.
Live TV, specifically sports, was supposed to be the antidote to the quarantine and “serious” news happenings around the world, but for the most part that hasn’t materialized. NBA Ratings cratered to their lowest numbers in years. The NFL is down. The World Series was down. RAW is worse than ever (I’m talking ratings, although I could talk about a lot more than that if I wanted…), and even on Wednesday nights, both NXT and AEW have lost about one or two hundred thousand viewers each, with more fickle fans finding freakish fun in following all our follies.
But the Wednesday Night War series must go on, so let’s grade the two shows.
PRESENTATION
WINNER: advantage NXT
Were it not for the final week of the month, I could just copy/paste what I wrote last month. For the most part, it’s all still true: AEW is running out of an open-air facility, with a smattering of fans providing a meager but better-than-nothing crowd to their shows. NXT is running in a comparatively smaller, less glamorous, more drab facility, and despite having the war chest and production experience of the WWE machine behind them, their brand looks in all the worst ways like a rinky dinky indie fed. They have fans now, and a Thunderdome style zoom-audience, but it still feels…small.
But Halloween Havoc will never not be the bomb.
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Granted, the look isn’t exactly like it was in the heyday of WCW, but there was an attempt. They had inflatable pumpkins, wrestlers dressed up in costume, eerie music. It worked. It felt like a genuine attempt to do a modern version of Halloween Havoc and not, what I feared, just the bare minimum to justify owning the name. I have no complaints about AEW, but NXT wins for doing something special (much the way AEW won months earlier for having a show on a literal boat).
CARD
WINNER: advantage AEW
Both shows had solid cards this month, but AEW had just enough “great” matches to push them over the top. Chief among them were the Dogcollar match between Cody Rhodes and Brodie Lee on the 7th, the tag match and the title matches on the anniversary show a week later, and the tournament match between Penta and Fenix.
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NXT had a fun show with Halloween Havoc but Dynamite’s anniversary show was better once you get past the former show’s visuals. Cody vs Orange Cassidy (both matches) delivered, though I felt in both cases like it was a match that needed more buildup and a PPV to showcase it. Overall, though, AEW brought the goods this month. It wasn’t as great as September, but it was enough to win this round again.
SURPRISES
WINNER: advantage no one
Neither company dropped a bomb, unless you count NXT and Halloween Havoc. There wasn’t a major debut, a big heel turn, or anything that would make someone on one channel want to hurry and change to the other to see what was going on. Almost all of their big stuff was pre-announced, which is a far cry from the way Nitro and Raw used to do their “war.”
NXT is still dealing with the fallout of Takeover 31 and hasn’t really started building a card for their next show. AEW, meanwhile, is ramping up for what looks to be a loaded Full Gear PPV next month. Because of that, this was one of those months where both companies were in a state of flux, one winding down and one gearing up. No surprises happened apart from the expected twists and turns (I don’t think anyone wasn’t expecting Jericho and MJF to finally start feuding properly), and the baked-in wackiness one expects from a special event (was that The Shockmaster I saw on Halloween Havoc?).
As such, I’ll rate this a push and say no one won.
WINNER OF THE MONTH:
IT’S A TIE!
Considering the schneid NXT has been on the past few months, pulling to a draw ought to be a win in their books. AEW didn’t do anything subpar this month, but NXT stepped it up in the ring, and ended the month with one of the most entertaining hours in the brand’s short network-TV history. Of course, Halloween Havoc is over and I don’t expect a Thanksgiving Thrashing to happen next month, or a Christmas Chaos show the month after that. So if NXT has to rely on gimmick shows to pull to a draw with AEW, that doesn’t bode well for the foreseeable future. But who knows, maybe they’ll pull Staarcade back out of mothballs for December. And there’s always Survivor Series.
Last November NXT scored its first ratings wins (two of its only three) by piggy-backing off the hype of Survivor Series. Will we see that again? Can NXT take the lead in the battle for Wednesday Night supremacy?
Find out next month on the WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAR REPORT!
