AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com
WWE announced last Sunday on NXT's Great American Bash that
they will hold a dual show on Sunday, August 30 to run
against ALL IN, with AAA and NXT running literally back-to-
back starting at Noon ET.
The AAA show, with no title as of yet, will be the first one
which kicks things off and then it will be followed
immediately by NXT Heatwave. Both shows will be held at the
Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg, TX, with tickets going on sale
on Wednesday, July 8.
Dave Meltzer reported last Monday that the AAA/NXT shows in
Edinburg, TX will be "buy one ticket and get two shows" with
AAA at 12 noon Eastern, NXT at 3 pm ET. Although the ALL IN
start time hasn't officially been announced as of yet,
Ticketmaster UK does list 16:30 GMT (12:30 pm ET). Given a
local curfew at Wembley Stadium, ALL IN will likely start at
either Noon or 1 pm ET.
This NXT PLE will air on The CW in the United States and on
Netflix internationally. It’s believed the AAA show will air
as usual on YouTube.
As in the past, running WWE programming against AEW PPVs
didn't work out, as their debut on CW saw the Bash only
getting 394,000 viewers and a 0.07 18-49 running against
Forbidden Door, the second time Great American Bash has been
used as cannon fodder against AEW, as compared to ratings
from CW the Sunday before, which saw 560,000. More on that
in a minute.
These shows are designed to intentionally clash with ALL IN
since ALL IN will be live from London and airing earlier in
the afternoon in the United States.
To remind everyone, here's what happened last year the last
time WWE-allied promotions ran three shows on a weekend
against ALL IN:
WWE counter-programmed ALL IN Texas with a Saturday Night's
Main Event on the same day as ALL IN Texas (July 12), then
ran an all-women's PLE, EVOLUTION on July 13. Then on that
Memorial Day weekend 2025, WWE announced NXT Great American
Bash would take place July 12 at Center Stage Theater in
Atlanta with a listed 3:00 pm bell time, taking place before
Saturday Night’s Main Event that evening, counter-
programming ALL IN Texas with three separate PLEs that
weekend, including the Great American Bash directly head-to-
head.
Here's a reminder of how it worked out a year ago:
The Great American Bash did its weakest number ever for a
PLE at around 100,000 views worldwide (not including
Peacock), on Netflix per the Wrestling Observer.
Saturday Night Main Event was loaded with a main event of
Gunther vs. Goldberg. It bombed so badly that WWE lost its
Saturday Night Main Event slot on NBC, due to only drawing
1.425 million viewers with a 0.33 18-49 rating (the lowest
rating in the history of the SNME series). It was best
remembered for cutting off the main event segment Goldberg's
retirement speech because they ran too long. WWE Evolution
then drew live 8,351 fans (many of whom bought discounted
tickets late), and did by far the lowest number of any PLE
WWE has done.
But WWE didn't learn. The newly invented Wrestlepalooza PLE
last September 20 in Indianapolis, IN went head-to-head with
AEW's ALL OUT from Toronto, ON. This was the first time that
WWE put a main roster PLE against an AEW show head-to-head.
The PLE was widely panned, best known for being graded a "C"
by ESPN fjght sports reporter Andreas Hale....AND the fact
that most cable subscribers couldn't/wouldn't watch it
because PLEs were being moved to the new ESPN Unlimited
service.
It's clear WWE is attempting to hurt AEW. It's equally clear
that hasn't worked going against a PPV...ever; and are
unlikely to do so against ALL IN. But what WWE will likely
do against ALL IN is hurt their partner AAA and again hurt
NXT by scheduling two events head-to-head against ALL IN.
Dave Meltzer reported this past week that current estimates
of Forbidden Door PPV buys were slightly below those of AEW
Dynasty, which did 145,000 buys. It doesn't appear that the
counter-programming effort of TKO against Forbidden Door had
a significant effect on buys.
Dave Meltzer said it best after Wrestling Observer Radio:
"...It boggles my mind. You really hate AEW so much
you're gonna start a show at 11am in Edinburg, TX because
you are so obsessed with maybe costing 3,000-5,000 buys out
of 185,000 next month? What the hell?"
Then....as mentioned last week, there are wrestling related
companies that believe in doing good. Fightful.com will be
presenting a 24-Hour professional wrestling Charity Stream
marathon, during which the Fightful Wrestling and Fightful
Overbooked personalities and podcasts collaborate on a 24-
hours to raise money for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental
Illness).
The event will run from Friday, July 16 at 5:00 pm ET to
Saturday, July 17 at 5:00 pm ET on the Fightful Overbooked
YouTube channel. Participants will be announced on future
Fightful podcasts, particularly In The Weeds on Fightful
Overbooked.
If you'd like to contact me, you can do so at my
bobmagee1@hotmail.com account or to through Facebook
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message me at https://twitter.com/BobMage70323520, or
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https://bsky.app/profile/bobmagee940.bsky.social
