10 Biggest Ways WWE Changed In AEW's First Full Year
9. WWE Takes NXT Live On Wednesdays
When AEW landed a television contract with TNT and announced the creation of their Wednesday night show Dynamite, WWE quickly announced a massive change for their brand NXT.
Dynamite was to air its first episode 2 October 2019. On 18 September 2019, NXT announced they would air live on the USA Network and stacked their first two shows in an attempt to build momentum and attract a bigger Wednesday night audience. It felt like an obvious attempt to hurt AEW's initial ratings.
The potential problem was, a "WWE-like" NXT would water down what fans had come to love. Still, WWE wasn't about to move Raw or SmackDown to compete against AEW. The next best thing was to move a handful of stars over to the black and gold outfit and ensure the show was now known as the third brand, not the developmental one. This included assimilating the 205 Live roster.
Over the next few months, as NXT tried to gain more viewers, it focused on building new stars, including well-known ones and adding elements that might appeal to some of AEW fan base.