Felix Upton on August 17, 2021
WWE and AEW are in competition with each other, but that wasn’t the reason for NXT’s move off Wednesday nights. Tyler Rust’s time in NXT was just picking up as he joined the Diamond Mine stable, but then he was released. His name was included in much larger list of talent who are no longer with the black and gold brand. NXT just moved over to Tuesdays, but it wasn’t because they lost the war. Now Rust can discuss some of those rumors as well.
NBC/Universal bought the NHL rights deal and they need somewhere to air those game. Professional hockey’s Wednesday night double headers took priority over NXT, so they were moved. This was the reason from a network standpoint, but many fans read what they wanted to out of the situation.
While speaking to Wrestling Inc, Tyler Rust went into the rumors that there was resentment among the NXT brand because of this move. He explained that the roster was told about the reason, and it had nothing to do with head-to-head competition that they were losing every week.
“Honestly, I would think they’re just speculation, personally, because the vibe around NXT has always been very good,” Rust noted. “It’s always been very controlled. When we did move to Tuesday, for example, it was made very clear that, hey, this is a total network thing. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Wednesday night deal. This is just a deal with USA. They want to move us over. They wanted to promote hockey more on a Wednesday night is what it was, and I love hockey, so I was all about it.”
“I’m like, hey, let’s promote the NHL. Everybody really needs to watch more NHL. Personally, I’m all down for it. I know there’s a lot of rumors now as far as Vince wanting to overhaul the NXT product and everything. Sometimes, rumors, maybe they’re right. We’ll see how it is going forward from there, but from my experience there, there wasn’t really many eggshells as far as upper management not being happy.”
“Everything they saw whenever they came to the Performance Center and they saw us training, they absolutely loved it. I remember hearing exact words were always like, ‘This is amazing. This is everything that we want to invest in,’ how much they were proud of all the hard work we were doing there at the Performance Center, and they see the way we train, the way that we work. They see how hard we really, really work on this product, and it was always such positive feedback from everybody upstairs, honestly.”
NXT now has a home on Tuesdays, and AEW is still on Wednesdays. If anything, that move gave some fans the ability to watch both shows instead of having to pick between brands. We’ll have to see if AEW finds themselves with any more head-to-head competition from WWE, but Vince McMahon made it clear that he doesn’t see AEW as the same competition that WCW once was.
What’s your take on this story? Sound off in the comments!
August 17, 2021 6:03 pm
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