AEW’s Tony Khan isn’t taking Dynamite’s trouncing in this Tuesday’s ratings war very lightly.
On X, Khan slammed the WWE and legendary stars like The Undertaker and John Cena by stating:
This week, 2 active decades-long ratings streaks from 2 great legends were ended
With all due respect, until this week's head-to-head AEW on TBS vs WWE on USA, neither John Cena nor Undertaker had ever been on a WWE show with under 1 million total viewers + under 400k in the demo— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) October 12, 2023
Some fans fired back at Khan:
When was the last time Edge was on a show with such low ratings?
— Fren (@SuperBestFren) October 12, 2023
THIS is not something to brag about. THIS is something that should worry the industry.
BOTH put out the best they had and collectively drew 1.5 MILLION
This could have shown networks how valuable wrestling "wars" are
Instead it showed the "best" can only do 1.6 million
A sad day— PAN (Philip Norris) (@PanCDCA) October 12, 2023
It's funny though, this tweet just puts a spotlight on the fact that his shows are regularly under 1 million viewers
— If you know you kneaux ⚜️ (@Taysomofdeez) October 12, 2023
Fans weren’t the only ones clapping back. So too has Eric Bischoff on his Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff podcast. After correctly predicting that Dynamite would pull in approximately 600,000 viewers last week up against NXT, Bischoff called Khan’s social media activity, which included taking shots at HHH and Shawn Michaels, as “off-the-wall crazy” and wished him a happy birthday saying that he was “41 going on 12”.
When a listener asked if there was anyone who could step in and help Khan make AEW better Bischoff said: “I think Tony is beyond help. I don’t think Tony Khan is the type of person that wants help. I think that Tony Khan, more than anything else, wants to be Paul Heyman or wants to be Vince McMahon. AEW is a vanity project. He loves wrestling! I get it! He loves it! He loves it with every fiber of his being! It doesn’t mean he is good at it. Unless Tony recognizes that he is not good at it you can bring in anybody you want and it won’t work because he won’t listen, not to the extent that he needs to. I wouldn’t wish that position on anybody. Absolutely not.”
Bischoff also predicted that in time Warner-Brothers Discovery, who might or might not own a stake in AEW, will demand answers or want improvements.
“At some point, there has to be a network executive that is in charge of or oversees the AEW product, they’ve got to get on the ball. This is a weird storm. You have Tony Khan who knows nothing about producing television. I don’t care how much of a wrestling fan he is and you’ve got a network now, Warner-Brothers Discovery, that doesn’t know anything about the wrestling business…How do you think that’s going to end up, eventually?” he commented. “Especially if Warner has a stake and a 30 per cent stake as you and I have both heard to be true, we don’t know that for a fact as there’s no smoking gun, but I believe it. A lot of people do believe it. Those who are a little closer to the epicenter of what’s going on. At some point somebody’s going to have to say: “No! This is not such a great idea the way we’re doing it. Let’s take a look at it.’ But, until that happens or until Tony recognizes he sucks at this there’s not going to be any changes and I certainly wouldn’t recommend anybody to go work there.”
On Tuesday night, NXT with such guest-stars as John Cena and The Undertaker, slammed Dynamite in the ratings.
NXT had an average of 921,000 viewers and a 0.30 rating in the coveted 18-49 demographic. Dynamite only averaged 609,000 viewers and a 0.26 rating in key 18-49 demographic.
NXT’s viewership was up 7.5% from the previous week. Dynamite, on the other hand, was down 24% from last week.
In the key demos, NXT was up 36% while Dynamite was down 7% from the previous week’s stats.
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