WWE announces major move

AEW knew what was coming. And it did its best to avoid it.

While its weekly Saturday show, AEW Collision , has enjoyed mixed results from a ratings standpoint since first launching last year, there are some obvious situations that have often led to a lack of eyeballs. And perhaps the most obvious comes on days in which WWE hosts its premium live events (previously known as pay-per-views), especially when they go head to head against Collision in primetime on Saturday nights.

One such situation was approaching this week, with WWE set to host its annual SummerSlam show on Saturday night. And just as it did when Collision was set to go against Night 1 of WrestleMania XL in April , AEW attempted to get a jump on avoiding the competition, moving the weekly TNT show from its typical 8 p.m. ET timeslot to 5 p.m. ET.

Considering AEW’s track record of going head to head against PLE’s — the last two Collision episodes to go head to head against WWE did 300,000 and 306,000 viewers, while the show avoiding WrestleMania did 463,000, according to Fightful — the decision to move the show going against SummerSlam seems to be a prudent one. But AEW also might have shown its hand too soon, with WWE announcing on Monday that SummerSlam ‘s pre-show will be three hours long, with a 4 p.m. ET start time.

While there’s no way to know whether WWE planned its pre-show with AEW in mind, it would make for quite the coincidence if that wasn’t the case. Typically, WWE’s pre-shows have only been two hours-longwith 5 p.m. ET start times, as was the case for this year’s WrestleMania XL and Money in the Bank (the Royal Rumble kickoff was only one hour-long and began at 7 p.m. ET).

While there’s always the possibility that this is just WWE continuing to lean into its new sports-like presentation under the direction of former ESPN executive Lee Fitting, starting the SummerSlam kickoff at 4 p.m. ET is, if nothing else, a happy accident with regard to AEW. By starting its pre-show an hour earlier than Collision , it’s possible that many wrestling fans will tune into the pre-show on Peacock first and potentially opt to remain there until the start of SummerSlam ‘s main show at 7 p.m. ET.

How much does any of this actually matter? Probably not much, if at all. Collision’ s ratings were already going to take a hit between the timeslot change and competition and this is ultimately just a one-week rating with several built-in excuses readily available. Obviously a good rating would be preferable to a bad rating. But the reality is that Collision ‘s year-plus track record is far more relevant to its ongoing media rights negotiations than a one-week sample with extenuating circumstances.

Still, like the cliché goes, all is fair in love and war. And that’s especially the case when said war occurs in the world of pro wrestling.

[ WWE ]

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