Edge and Christian talked about WWE NXT vs. AEW on a recent episode of the E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness podcast.
WWE will begin airing NXT on the USA Network starting September 18th. The show will be two hours that will fill in the 8 pm ET – 10 pm ET time slot on Wednesday nights as a way to counter-program AEW, which will air in the same time slot on TNT starting October 2nd.
Here are the highlights, courtesy of Wrestling Inc:
“Man, to me, that is so exciting,” Edge told Christian. “I really do think it ups everyone’s game. I think right now if you’re a [professional] wrestling fan, if you’re a performer, what an exciting time to be involved in the industry. So, you have RAW and SmackDown [Live] sure, but man, Wednesday nights are going to be the night now. I just think it’s fun. I think back to the Nitro and RAW stuff and everything. I’m not saying AEW is WCW. I don’t even know if AEW looks at this thing like a competition. I just think they want people to have a different option or another option, but now it’s coming to this because hey it’s Vince [McMahon] and WWE and if you start a promotion we are going to try to run you out of town. But I think that does up everyone’s game.”
Christian chimed in with, “For sure, competition is healthy. It is! It keeps everybody on their toes. It keeps everybody sharp. And the people that are going to win – I’ve said it in the past – the people that are going to win in all of this are the fans because they are going to get some really, really great content, as far as [professional] wrestling goes, going forward.
“Yeah, it’s also a huge jump for NXT to come off the WWE Network and come onto cable television. That’s huge. If you think about where NXT started from, kind of a reality TV type of show. I don’t remember what it was on, to be honest with you. It might have been on USA [Network] or Syfy or something like that. But like to see where it moved to where FCW was and now the PC and on The Network. Just the quality of performers that have come out of there and what they’ve built it into now.” Christian added, “you see that it’s a legit third brand and that’s exciting.”
