Cody Rhodes On How Much AEW Pays Attention To NXT

The Wednesday Night wars officially kicked off when AEW Dynamite premiered on TNT back in October, and the stars of All Elite Wrestling have been going head to head with NXT ever since.

AEW Dynamite has managed to come out ahead in the ratings for the majority of its run so far, but NXT has picked up a few victories in the ratings war.

While speaking with talkSPORT Cody was asked how attention AEW officials pay to NXT, and he noted that while they don’t watch NXT on a monitor while they’re producing their own show, they are aware of what NXT does.

“We’re aware [of what NXT do] more because we have friends in both locker rooms. We diligently make sure that we don’t have it on the monitor in go-position because, again, we’ve got to be more aware of the audience that’s watching on TNT. There’s a difference between playing to the audience strategically that’s flipping channels from, perhaps, TNT to USA. We’re aware of it, we’ve got so many friends in the locker room and I have a deep-rooted connection to NXT because my dad helped change it from the developmental to more of a fully-fledged out brand with his contributions there. So I have nothing but respect for what they’re doing, I just think we’re doing a drastically different show.”

“It’s more something you look at it [NXT] after the fact and it’s like ‘what did they do this week’ and whatnot. I’d think they’d be the same, but you’d be surprised how we’re very much just focused on our show. If we got all like ‘lets find out what they’re doing,’ that would be really easy to do, but it wouldn’t be very true to what we’ve been trying to do all along. We have Jon Moxley, Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, PAC, myself, Darby Allin, Kris Statlander and just the talent that I’m naming now, my responsibility is to them and to making sure they beam across the television sets appropriately.”

Which show have you been enjoying more, AEW Dynamite or NXT? Sound off in the comments below.