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AEW Outshines WWE in Viewership after Rusev’s Big Debut

Published 09/10/2020, 11:05 PM EDT

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AEW continued its rise to the top of the wrestling mountain with its latest episode of Dynamite. The show drew a record 1.016 million viewers, it’s highest number since October 2019.

Interestingly, there was no competition from NXT for the second week in a row. Additionally, former WWE star Rusev (now known as Miro) made his big debut for the promotion.

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Even though NXT featured a massive NXT Championship match between Adam Cole and Finn Balor, it could only draw 838,000 viewers. That was a 15 percent drop from its last week’s figure.

On the other hand, AEW actually saw a rise in its numbers. Last week’s Dynamite drew 928,000 viewers.

AEW maintains its firm hold over the key demographic

AEW drew a solid 0.37 rating in the key 18-49 demographic while NXT’s number was a meager 0.22. The corresponding figures for last week stood at 0.36 for AEW and 0.26 for NXT.

Talking about their overall place in the viewership spectrum, AEW stood at #7 in the Cable top 150 while NXT was #15. Needless to say, AEW dominated the black and gold brand on all fronts.

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Apart from the big debut of Miro, there were many other factors that drove AEW’s upsurge. For one, the show would feature the fallout from AEW All Out. The shows succeeding a big pay-per-view generally tend to do good numbers as viewers want to know the future trajectory of storylines.

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Additionally, Tony Khan had advertised Matt Hardy for the show. Considering the hype around his brutal injury at All Out, fans wanted to hear from the tag team legend. On his part, Hardy cut a fantastic promo and didn’t disappoint them.

The biggest positive for AEW is that they were able to showcase their amazing talent to these new viewers. A fan who just tuned in because he was a Matt Hardy fan would’ve seen the brilliance of the tag team division.

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This is how any company builds a core fan base over the long run. Tony Khan’s promotion has kick-started the process and big things await their future.

Read more – AEW Makes Huge Announcements for Next Week’s Dynamite

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Written by:

Aryan Sharma

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Aryan Sharma is a WWE and Tennis author and editor at EssentiallySports. Being a journalism graduate from Delhi University, he combines his love for creating content with an astute knowledge of almost three eras of professional wrestling. He's also a Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova fan and likes to write on the social impact of these two legends beyond their achievements on the tennis court.
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