Dave Meltzer Assesses WWE's Decision To Run SNME On Same Day As AEW All In

It's been known for many months that WWE were planning to run an edition of Saturday Night's Main Event on July 12, the same day as AEW's All In Texas event, which prompted AEW to move the start time of their show to the afternoon. However, WWE has since announced "WWE NXT's" Great American Bash Premium Live Event July 12 as well, meaning that show will go head-to-head with All In Texas, while the second-ever Evolution pay-per-view will take place the day after on July 13.

Despite claiming AEW to be a secondary promotion who they don't need to worry about, WWE have gone out of their way to consistently medal with AEW's upcoming schedule, counterprogramming them at every opportunity. Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter explained that the initial decision to run Saturday Night's Main Event on July 12 was to simply hurt AEW as much as possible, with recent editions of the show causing damage to the "AEW Collision" TV ratings whenever that show has gone up against it, resulting in multiple cases of "Collision" being moved to a Thursday night instead. However, Meltzer did say that the trend of counterprogramming, with the Battleground Premium Live Event being the latest example, shows the public just how concerned WWE is with AEW, when in reality, they have no reason to be.

As far as Saturday Night's Main Event on July 12 is concerned, WWE are planning to load up the show despite not running against All In Texas. The biggest rumor is that Goldberg's retirement match will happen as the event is in Atlanta, Georgia (Goldberg's hometown), and while not officially confirmed at the time of writing, having a retirement match for someone like Goldberg on the same day as All In Texas might convince enough people to not spend the money on AEW's pay-per-view and watch WWE for free on NBC instead.