Unless you have been living under a rock since last fall, you are most likely aware that All Elite Wrestling’s weekly show, Dynamite, is in the middle of a ratings war with WWE’s Wednesday night offering, NXT. This for the most part despite the twitter trolls, and talk of what ratings actually matter has been a good thing overall for wrestling fans. Every week a good portion of the country sits down to watch what are considered to be two of the best wrestling shows currently on the air. The last two weeks have seen an escalation of this “war” with both shows putting on two-week special event episodes featuring pay per view (or TakeOver) sized cards on free television. Once again the real winner is wrestling fans, but for the sake of content I am going to break down my reviews and notes on the 4 shows and declare which promotion reigned supreme in the first two weeks of July 2020.
There are three different ways that I am going to break down who the winner is, quantitatively, qualitatively, and then a mix of the two.
Quantitative
This is actually the easiest way to determine which shows I liked more and which ones fell a little flat for me. The methodology is pretty straight forward, I give 1 point for every good, -1 for every bad, and -2 for every ugly. To follow along go ahead and check out my reviews for each show at here, here, here, and here
First up is NXT: The Great American Bash Night 1, for this show I gave
11 Goods
3 Bads
1 Ugly
Leaving the total score for NXT: GAB Night 1 at a 6
Second, we have Fyter Fest Night 1 looking at the review for this show I gave it
10 Good
5 Bad
2 Ugly
Final Score: 1
NXT: GAB Night 2
8 Good
3 Bad
1 Ugly
Final Score: 3
Finally, Fyter Fest Night 2
11 Good
6 Bad
1 Ugly
Final Score: 3
Overall when it comes to just assigning numerical value to my reviews that I have already posted NXT ends with a combined score of 9, where as AEW lags behind with a combined score of 4. Keep in mind however, that there are still two ways of looking at the shows.
Qualitative
Look, I know just as much as anyone that not all goods are worth the same value, just as not all bads are the same level of bad. So for this method I am looking at where I used enthusiastic language in my reviews and deciding which shows mad me more excited, or on the other hand which matches just upset me the most.
Night One of NXT
I had three matches that I noted as being potential match of the week contenders: Lorcan and Thatcher, Lumis and Strong’s strap match, and Shirai vs Banks main event.
I also noted that I was a big fan of the women’s fatal four-way elimination match.
In general my list of bads and uglies were fairly tame compared to how excited I was in my good section.
Night 1 of Fyter Fest on the other hand featured a lot of moments and elements of matches that I liked, but I couldn’t quite give the same endorsement of a full match like I did for any of the matches on NXT.
On the other hand I had a good number of elements that I just did not vibe with at all. Including Taz’s promo continuing to call out Mox for doing the right thing.
For week 1 I have to give the advantage to NXT
Night 2 of NXT is a different story. I gave a lot of deserving praise to the opening street fight between Candice LeRae and Mia Yim as well as the excellent main event “winner take all” match between Adam Cole and Keith Lee, but other than that there were elements of matches that I liked but I wouldn’t say any of the middle of the card was “must watch television”.
My bads and uglies weren’t too negative though, other than the fact that I still cannot get over NXT doing dark matches for the PC recruits! Why is that happening???
Night 2 of Fyter Fest was a sleeper hit for me! All of the tag matches were excellent and Taz bringing back the FTW championship really did a lot for me.
That being said my bads were pretty mild, but I went off on a huge rant in my ugly section. I cannot overstate how upset I was at seeing the finish of the Orange Cassidy Chris Jericho match. But at the end of the day that is one match that I admittedly still enjoyed.
Week 2 is clear I’ve got to give the edge to AEW and Fyter Fest!
This leaves us tied which is honestly about what I expected. So let’s move on to the final method for determining the “Event Episode Champion”
Mixing Methods 1 and 2
It’s pretty clear that the easiest way to find a true winner is to mix our quantitative method with our qualitative one. The method is simple going back and reading my reviews I found some goods can be considered greats depending on the language I used as well as going back through my notes, as well as deciding bads are actually worse (but not quite ugly) so here is our new point system. Great 2 points, Good 1 Point, Bad -1 point, Worse -1.5 Points, Ugly -2 points.
Alright here we go NXT: GAB Night 1
Great: 4
Good: 7
Bad: 2
Worse: 1
Ugly: 1
Final Score: 9.5
Next up is Fyter Fest Night 1
Great: 3
Good: 7
Bad: 4
Worse: 1
Ugly: 2
Final Score: 3.5
Great American Bash Night 2
Great: 2
Good: 6
Bad: 2
Worse: 1
Ugly: 1
Final Score: 3.5
Lastly, Fyter Fest Night 2
Great: 3
Good: 8
Bad: 6
Worse: 0
Ugly: 1
Final Score: 6
So now combining each show’s weekly scores together you end up with a final score of
Fyter Fest: 9.5
Great American Bash: 13
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day all of these methods whether “quantitative” or “qualitative” are just based on my opinions. So if you enjoyed Fyter Fest more than The Great American Bash that is totally up to you. I think the one thing that we can agree on is that the last two weeks have been some of the best televised wrestling of this current “empty arena” era.
I think that it is important to remember that the “Wednesday Night Wars” aren’t a war between fans of the shows but rather a war between two promotions trying to give you the best show that they can. Even if there is eventually a “winner” declared the real winners have been the fans the whole time.
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