AAA/NXT Crossover Event Was “Eye-Opener” For WWE Due To Crowd Departures
The AAA/NXT crossover event on Sunday didn’t go to plan, especially with how the crowd reacted and interacted with certain things.
On Sunday, WWE booked two pay-per-view events, starting with AAA Ola De Calor and then going right into NXT Heatwave. On paper, this could’ve been something special, and there were key moments on the shows, including major title changes during NXT Heatwave. However,
As noted by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, the biggest talking point in the company is that much of the audience was gone by the time the NXT show had its main event, and that wasn’t the only problem:
“I heard from even people in the company about that Sunday show, and it was an eye-opener, I would say, because they put NXT second and they put AAA first thinking that we’re in the United States and NXT is bigger than AAA. And all the NXT people, it was pretty tough. A lot of the audience left after the AAA show. They said that maybe half the people were left for the main event. The Mexicans were all way, way, way more over than the NXT wrestlers, other than Zilla Fatu. They said Zilla Fatu was so over in that building, but nobody else. Not Kendal Grey, not Tony D, or Myles Borne or anything like that. Even Nattie, who they figured would be super, super over, and really was not. It was a Mexican audience that came to see lucha libre, and some of them stayed. But the thing is, the learning thing is, if you do this, you should probably put NXT first, rather than put them in three hours into the show.”
-Dave Meltzer
While from a logistical standpoint the back-to-back shows didn’t work out the way WWE had expected in the building, it’s important to remember that NXT portion of the event went head-to-head with All Elite Wrestling’s All In London. As Meltzer notes, the overlap with AEW’s event could’ve been what prompted the company to put names that are recognisable to their American audience like Kendal Grey and Tony D’Angelo up against their opposite number.
Plus, directly compare YouTube numbers, the Buy-In section of All In: London eclipsed the AAA portion of WWE’s Sunday-night offering. The other thing to note here is that the counterprogramming set to continue with All Out, as AEW’s September show will be facing a World’s Collide Event on the same night, and both shows will be in Chicago.
Speaking of All In, AEW recently released footage after the main event which the pay-per-view broadcast. You can read more about that here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on WWE’s NXT and AAA double header as soon as we hear more.
H/T to F4WOnline for the transcription.
