The Wednesday Night Wars may soon begin.
WWE’s NXT brand is expected to begin airing shows Wednesday nights from 8-10 p.m. ET on USA Network beginning Sept. 18, according to the Wrestling Observer. An official announcement could come as soon as the newest episode of “Monday Night Raw.”
When asked for comment, WWE said it has nothing to report at this time. NBC Universal didn’t immediately return requests seeking comment.
Airing NXT in that time slot on Wednesday puts it directly up against All Elite Wrestling’s show on TNT, which has its first broadcast set for Oct. 2 from Capital One Area in Washington, DC. If true, it sets the wrestling industry up for a smaller version of the Monday Night Wars from the late 1990s. NXT being the brand to directly compete with AEW for ratings makes sense because both target more of a hardcore wrestling audience.
NXT, which the WWE sees as its own brand and is overseen by Triple H, currently airs as a one-hour taped show every Wednesday at 8 p.m. on the WWE Network and is one of the over-the-top-streaming service’s most popular shows. The show’s future on the Network remains unclear.
There have been rumors previously that NXT could potentially land on Fox Sports 1 to replace some of the UFC content it lost. Fox Sports’ relationship with WWE, as “SmackDown Live” gets ready to move to Fox on Oct. 4, appears to be going well with the level of promotion the network has given their partnership with the wrestling company. FS1 will air a WWE studio show starting this fall.
A potential hiccup to NXT landing on FS1, if WWE was targeting a specific date or time, is the channel’s commitment to other shows and live sporting events that would have prohibited it from providing a consistent viewing window on the network for NXT.
The move is WWE’s latest attempt to counter-program AEW, which is seen in the industry as the wrestling Goliath’s biggest threat for competition. Last month, WWE broadcast the Evolve promotion’s 10th anniversary show, on which NXT talent appeared, opposite AEW’s “Fight for the Fallen.” NXT UK’s TakeOver Cardiff pay-per-view will air at 3 p.m. on Aug. 31 prior to AEW’s “All Out” show.
Triple H dismissed the idea of WWE counter-programming in an interview with Sporting News earlier this month.
“I’ll say this: contrary to what I’ve heard because you hear people speculate and I’ve seen the conversations around NXT and FS1 and then people come in with counter-programming talk (with AEW airing Wednesday nights),” he said. “We have content all over the place, and if people want to talk about counter-programming, Wednesday ha[s] been the home of NXT forever. When other people announce Wednesday (to air shows), you don’t talk about counter-programming, you just hear the announcement. For us, everything is counter-programming.”
The announcement would make this a huge fall with the first “SmackDown Live” on a Friday on Fox being a SmackDown 20th Anniversary show. Raw will remain on USA in its traditional three-hour time slot from 8-11 p.m. on Monday.
AEW hasn’t shied away from commenting on WWE counter-programming against it. Executive vice president Cody Rhodes told the crowd after “Fight for the Fallen,” “You can’t counter-program what All Elite Wrestling is doing.” And fellow executive vice president Nick Jackson, one half of the Young Bucks tag team, tweeted “We aren’t scared” on Monday in the direct response to the news that NXT appears to be on its way to USA.