Nielsen Ratings Gives WWE & TNA Wrestling The Nod Over Tuesday's AEW Dynamite

Regardless of how AEW scored, WWE should be very happy with these figures. As we covered earlier in the week, Nielsen recently changed how it calculates television ratings and the new system has had a negative impact across the professional wrestling industry.

Last Friday's episode of WWE SmackDown, for example, averaged 1.03 million viewers on the USA Network. That's a drop of 19% from the week prior, and the lowest figure for the Blue Brand since November 29, 2023 when the show aired on FS1.

The new “Big Data + Panel” method has folks in the industry paying close attention, according the recent reports, but many are still unsure what to make of it. Especially given that this new system has only been in place for a couple of weeks.

SmackDown still finished third on cable Friday night, and the even better news is that this week's episode of NXT increased in viewership by 9% over last week. A very positive sign.

As for the direct competition with AEW, there's a few things to keep in mind.

The Nielsen ratings do not take into consideration those wrestling fans who watched Dynamite on the HBO Max streaming service.

Those HBO Max figures are not made public, so it's very difficult to determine just how close this head-to-head competition was in actuality.

AEW Dynamite was also airing outside of its normal timeslot, which typically falls at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday nights.

Title Tuesday was headlined by Orange Cassidy defeating PAC, while NXT Showdown closed out with a first of its kind NXT vs. TNA Wrestling Survivor Series-Style Elimination Match. Mike Santana and Moose were the soul survivors for Team TNA, after Trick Williams walked out on NXT Champion Ricky Saints.

The Hardy Boyz also made history Tuesday Night when they defeated DarkState to become the NXT Tag Team Champions. They are the first wrestlers to ever be signed to TNA Wrestling and hold WWE championship gold.

Both shows were really good this week. The real winners are the fans.