Steve Carrier on July 17, 2025
WWE is once again distancing itself from the NXT name—and this time, it’s for a major showdown with AEW’s Forbidden Door.
According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE is marketing the upcoming Heatwave event as “WWE Heatwave,” completely omitting any reference to the NXT brand.
The show is scheduled for Sunday, August 24, 2025, at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, Massachusetts, a relatively small venue for a WWE Premium Live Event. Despite the rebranding, ticket sales have been sluggish, and the venue has yet to sell out.
This marks the second time WWE has taken this approach. The first was Great American Bash, which was also presented as a WWE-branded event despite being fully NXT. Meltzer called attention to the strategic rebranding during his conversation with Bryan Alvarez:
“They are not branding NXT. This is now the second time that there’s an NXT show that they’re just calling ‘WWE Whatever.’”
He continued by pointing out the pattern, referencing the previous event:
“It was WWE Great American Bash—WWE, WWE, WWE—for a total NXT show. And now this is Forbidden Door against WWE Heatwave, which is an NXT show.”
Despite the WWE branding, Meltzer noted that the tactic hasn’t moved tickets the way they’d hoped:
“They were in a small building and, up until the last couple days, they weren’t even sold out in that little building.”
The decision to remove “NXT” from the name may be WWE’s way of masking the fact that the brand still struggles with perception issues, even as they attempt to go head-to-head with AEW on one of the company’s biggest weekends.
This situation also reflects WWE’s continuing effort to prop up NXT’s image while minimizing any direct comparisons to AEW’s main roster-level events.
Ringside News will have live coverage of WWE Heatwave on August 24 from Lowell Memorial Auditorium—stay tuned for all the updates live as they happen.
Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.
What do you think about WWE downplaying the NXT brand in its own promotional materials? Do you think it helps or hurts the show's credibility? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.
July 17, 2025 8:00 am
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