When NXT and AEW started going head to head people from both sides downplayed the idea of the Wednesday Night Wars. However, things have since changed as NXT moved from Wednesday nights to Tuesday nights a few months ago.
It seems that when the shows were going head to head there were people from WWE who were watching AEW while NXT was being taped. Diva Dirt recently shared the following video which shows a monitor playing content from the February 19, 2020 episode of AEW Dynamite during the NXT TV tapings:
WWE Producers watching AEW during an NXT filming.@WWE @AEW @SeanRossSapp @The_MJF @CodyRhodes @AEWonTNT pic.twitter.com/PBPjaIRmAs
— DIVA INSIDER (@DivaInsider) August 4, 2021
Vince McMahon was recently asked about AEW investing in talent during WWE’s Q2 earnings call, and he said that he doesn’t consider AEW to be competition.
“It’s certainly not a situation where it’s rising tides because Ted Turner was coming after us with all of Time Warner assets as well. It was a different situation. AEW is where they are. I don’t really know what their plans are, all I know is what our plans are. I don’t consider them competition in the way that I considered WCW back in the day. Not even near close to that. I’m not so sure what their investments are as far as their talent is concerned. Perhaps, we can give them some more.”
[…] been rumors that AEW programming is on monitors backstage during WWE TV tapings, and a video of a WWE producer watching AEW during a NXT taping even surfaced online a few months ago. Tony Khan reacted to the rumors by saying he admires WWE for […]