NXT Vs. AEW: Head To Head
Wednesday Night Dynamite.
This week, WWE announced its latest strategy to counteract AEW: the transition of NXT from the WWE Network to the USA Network.
The show will air live and will extend to two hours, and will come under the scrutiny of Vince McMahon, of which there is no doubt. He didn’t make this decision because he felt the top stars deserved a big, TV-sized pay rise.
He made it because AEW must be defeated.
If ratings don’t match AEW, things will change. This has caused some unrest within the online wrestling community. The replies to WWE’s official Twitter announcement are a storm of cynicism: Johnny Gargano nervously playing with his ear; Titus O’Neil dropping a keg; the Undisputed Era distraught in defeat; the Street Profits dancing with cups in hand and belts around waist, captioned ‘Now all we need to know is if HHH maintains control and if he does, then it’s a f*cking party!!!’
But can NXT even win the war on its own terms?
In a slight departure from the usual format of this series, here, an attempt is made to determine which brand is best positioned to win this so-called war…
10. Men’s Roster
Adam Cole is a TV star perfectly equipped to lead the transition: handsome, charismatic, and a great modern pro wrestler, his connection with the crowd is iron-forged. Outside of the Barclays Center on Friday night of WrestleMania Weekend, his fans volleyed cries of ‘BAY-BAY’ across the Brooklyn air. He is super over.
Matt Riddle is a total joy to watch, wrestling a legitimate style with a potency free of WWE’s usual tinkering. Johnny Gargano is so good, at his best, that he is capable of connecting with crowds that have cooled on him over the course of 35 pulsating, dramatic minutes. Velveteen Dream is a very good worker, and his sheer star power compensates for the lingering fact that he isn’t great.
Kenny Omega is great. He is the greatest pro wrestler on the planet, arguably, fusing theatre and physicality with a genius sense of building a match. Chris Jericho is a master of evolution; never the most believable of pro wrestlers in his prime, he has adapted to become a stiff sh*t-kicking brawler. Cody wrestles—and is close to perfecting—a very different, traditional style. Jon Moxley, over the course of the G1 Climax tournament, didn’t so much reinvent himself as reinvent himself every night, transforming from crazed violent brawler to an expert limb work strategist.
The undercard settles this round in AEW’s favour. There are several fairly uninteresting hosses in NXT, in addition to the very good but not outstanding talents that emerged—just about—from the Breakout tournament.
In AEW, the superb heels (MJF), unique babyfaces (Darby Allin) and unprecedented meta sensations (Orange Cassidy) are far more interesting.
NXT 0 - 1 AEW