10 Times WWE Ripped Off AEW
5. A Two-Week 'Event' On Free Television
AEW Fyter Fest 2020 was originally scheduled to take place in London this year before the global shut-down knackered everything. Instead, this scheduled show, around which long-term storylines were built, took place free on TNT as a two-week event across July 1 and 8.
Jon Moxley Vs. Brian Cage was set at Double Or Nothing; Chris Jericho Vs. Orange Cassidy was foreshadowed on the May 27 Dynamite; FTR debuted, on the same show, in a mysterious interaction with the Young Bucks booked with their teaming together this Wednesday in mind. NXT meanwhile announced their own two-week event - The Great American Bash, those shrivelled c*cks - just one week ahead of July 1. It would also, by incredible coincidence, take place across July 1 and 8!
Triple H reckons that while NXT does counter-programme, they don't counter-book. So was Karrion Kross taunting Adam Cole with an hourglass that time because he knew Keith Lee was watching on a monitor, or...?
NXT did counter-book, it's an insult levied by an arrogant man to suggest otherwise, and they did so via a tired and deeply contrived promo train segment that suddenly and suspiciously set up the Winner Takes All Adam Cole Vs. Keith Lee main event this week. Chuck in a Women's four-way match, a grabby main roster star appearance, and there you have it.
It was, depressingly, an intelligent and successful strategy in the short-term, gauging by overall viewership. The very short-term; with a title eliminated as a storyline driver, NXT has already arrived back at Finn Bálor Vs. Johnny Gargano, and a one-off Sasha Banks cameo meant more to viewership than the highest-stakes title match in NXT history.
Long-term, this move only served to reinforce the creeping perception that NXT is a desperate, reactive weapon far more than it is any sort of alternative.
"We are not your kind" was total bullsh*t.