Last night’s episode of AEW Dynamite featured the addition of a few big names. “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair was revealed as Tony Khan’s retirement gift to Sting, and he looks to be sticking around through the end of The Icon’s AEW run. In the main event, “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada returned to the AEW landscape to team with Orange Cassidy in a losing effort to Blackpool Combat Club’s Claudio Castagnoli and Bryan Danielson.
Wrestlenomics reports that last night’s episode of AEW Dynamite drew an average overall audience of 774,000 viewers, with about 321,000 of those in the key 18 – 49 demographic. This is down 14% in overall viewership from last week’s episode and down 21% in the key demo. It is the lowest overall viewership for Dynamite in its normal time slot since June 15, 2022, and the lowest key demo viewership since June 28, 2023.
By contrast, this week’s WWE NXT drew an average overall audience of 787,000 viewers, barely edging out Dynamite for the most eyeballs. However, NXT only pulled in about 276,000 key demo viewers, down from what Dynamite did in that category. NXT has now outdrawn Dynamite in overall viewership in three of the last four weeks. As Haus of Wrestling has previously reported, Paul “Triple H” Levesque and Shawn Michaels are taking the competition with Dynamite seriously and want to send a message to AEW President Tony Khan with viewership wins.
AEW Dynamite’s highest overall viewership for this week’s show came during the first quarter hour, which drew an average of 982,000 fans. The highest overall key demo viewership came in the second quarter-hour, which drew 394,000 viewers in that category. The first and second quarter hours featured MJF successfully defeating Juice Robinson for his fifth Dynamite Diamond Ring. Following MJF versus Robinson, the show saw a 20% drop in overall viewership and a 27% drop in key demo viewership and never recovered to the highs it saw for the first half hour.