By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Saturday’s AEW Collision television show averaged 417,000 viewers for TNT, according to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.com. Collision finished with a 0.13 rating in the 18-49 demo in Saturday’s cable ratings.
Powell’s POV: The previous week’s show delivered 739,000 viewers with a 0.27 rating. Obviously, SummerSlam took a bite out of the Collision numbers. AEW didn’t phone in this episode by any means by going with CM Punk vs. Ricky Starks with Ricky Steamboat as the ringside enforcer as the main event. The competition will continue be strong with regional NFL preseason coverage for a few weeks followed by the return of college football.
So now we know that the “core” AEW hardcore fans are around 400,000.
AEW fans skew younger so I am sure they went back on their electronics and re-watched (and enjoyed) a fairly stacked show.
I personally expected this number to be significantly higher (600k maybe) because I really didn’t think AEW fans would be pulled away by a WWE PLE but maybe this really shows that outside of a vocal minority, most wrestling fans allow themselves to enjoy both programs. And that’s good for wrestling in general