WWE Made Wrestling History Tuesday Night — And Nobody Noticed
By the time Paul Heyman showed up on screen, it was getting ridiculous. "WWE NXT," in a blatant attempt at beating "AEW Dynamite: Title Tuesday" in the ratings when the two shows go head-to-head on October 10, had already announced Asuka, Cody Rhodes, and John Cena for next week's episode. Heyman stopped short of saying Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns would appear for the ostensibly developmental brand, but he did say that he himself would be there, adding a Bloodline cherry on top of the main roster sundae. Since then, the discourse surrounding Tuesday's "NXT" and Wednesday's "Dynamite" — which added several big matches to a "Title Tuesday" card that will already feature Adam Copeland's in-ring AEW debut — has been about the sudden re-emergence of the ratings war between the two shows, which famously duked it out on Wednesday nights in AEW's early days before the fledgling promotion forced its more established competition to retreat to Tuesdays.
But there was something else happening Tuesday night that hasn't gotten nearly as much attention. In an industry that has long had problems with gender representation, particularly in the United States, "NXT" quietly put on a program that featured an almost entirely even split between men and women — and where it wasn't even, it was actually in favor of the women. There is no word for such an episode other than historic; in the long history of nationally televised American wrestling, there has rarely, if ever, been a program that featured twice as many women's matches than men's matches, more total ring time for the women's division, and a dead-even split between men and women in total screen time. And yet, when it was over, there we were — talking about ratings.
Which is why it's high time we took a moment to properly celebrate what happened on "NXT" Tuesday night. There's still plenty of time to talk about October 10; that's next week. This week, "NXT" deserves its flowers for making history while nobody was paying attention.
The numbers don't lie...
To be clear: I don't know for sure that what happened on this week's episode of "NXT" has never happened before, mainly because I don't think anyone has ever gone through the history of American wrestling and calculated the gender disparity for every TV episode, and I am not currently prepared to be the first. There are also nebulous definitions in play; it's possible that Impact Wrestling, for example, has accomplished a similar feat, but Impact has never been a "major" promotion in the way that WWE and AEW are. Moreover, "NXT" in the "2.0" era and beyond has been notorious for presenting more than the usual amount of women's division content, especially when the Women's Breakout Tournament comes around. Notably, the 5/24/2022 episode of "NXT," which took place in the middle of the 2022 tournament, ran four consecutive women's matches just like this past Tuesday's episode did. But not even that episode reached the heights "NXT" achieved this week, and to figure out why, we can turn to the numbers.
- Of the six matches that took place on NXT, four were women's matches, doubling the number of men's matches.
- The total amount of in-ring time for the women, bell to bell, was 24 minutes, 53 seconds. This is more than the men's total in-ring, time, which was 20 minutes and 29 seconds. Lyra Valkyria vs. Roxanne Perez vs. Indi Hartwell was the longest match of the night at 11 minutes and 55 seconds.
- Women's matches and non-match segments involving women's stories were on-screen for a total of 49 minutes, exactly (this includes the backstage segment and subsequent match involving Thea Hail and Jacy Jayne, which included two male characters but is clearly a women's division storyline).
- Excluding full commercial breaks (but not commercial breaks that took place during matches with picture-in-picture) there was a total of one hour, 39 minutes of screen time on "NXT." The aforementioned 49 minutes of women's storytelling represents almost exactly 50% of that time.
- Not counting announcers, backstage interviewers, and referees, 19 female performers and 19 male performers got screen time on "NXT," an even split.
Here's my favorite stat: There was a 31-minute stretch of "NXT" television on Tuesday, just before the main event, where the only interruption to women's division storylines were commercials and a 35-second Brian Pillman Jr. video package. I'm confident in saying nothing like that has ever happened in AEW, and if it's happened in WWE, nobody remembers.
...and they spell disaster for the status quo
Just for fun, let's compare these numbers to Wednesday's episode of "AEW Dynamite:"
- Of the five matches that took place, four were men's matches, quadrupling the number of women's matches.
- The total amount of in-ring time for the women, bell to bell, was six minutes, 49 seconds, compared to 35 minutes, 19 seconds total for the men. Toni Storm vs. Skye Blue was shorter than two of the men's matches and longer than two others.
- Women's matches and non-match segments involving women's stories were on-screen for a total of 12 minutes and four seconds (this does not include anything involving Renee Paquette).
- Excluding full commercial breaks (but not commercial breaks that took place during matches with picture-in-picture) there was a total of one hour, 56 minutes of screen time on "Dynamite." The aforementioned six minutes, 49 seconds of women's storytelling represents a little more than 10% of that time.
- Not counting announcers, backstage interviewers, and referees, 39 male performers got screen time on "Dynamite," as opposed to two female performers, representing less than 5% of the total.
This comparison isn't meant as blanket praise for WWE and condemnation of AEW. The AEW splits are similar to what we see in a typical episode of "Raw" or "SmackDown." That's the point — the massive disparity in gender representation seen in the "Dynamite" numbers is the norm. The equality we see in the "NXT" numbers is a historic exception. But it doesn't have to be.
The common refrain from promoters about why they don't feature more women's content is a subject that brings us full circle — the ratings. The women's division doesn't bring in the numbers, they say. But as it turns out, we didn't have to wait for October 10 to see "NXT" beat "Dynamite" in a ratings war — for the first time in a long time, "NXT" drew more viewers than "Dynamite," and while that can likely be attributed to the presence of main roster stars (including, notably, Becky Lynch) it's also proof that giving women equal time doesn't necessarily hurt viewership. And that means other promotions and other shows, including other WWE shows, are running out of excuses.
But nothing will change unless we talk about it. Maybe even — and I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out — more than we talk about ratings.