Update on Future of AEW vs. WWE Saturday Night Competition

As noted before, AEW and Warner Bros Discovery are currently considering plans to hold multi-hour AEW specials during this year’s NHL Playoffs and Stanley Cup Final. AEW’s upcoming Collision show during WrestleMania 41 week was recently revealed to be airing on Thursday, April 17th in Boston, Massachusetts instead of Saturday, April 19th to avoid going head-to-head against WWE’s WrestleMania 41 event that night.

Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that his sources stated that AEW and WBD officials are monitoring the possibility of having less AEW vs. WWE competition on Saturdays in the future.

Meltzer speculated that this May’s Memorial Day weekend could be another Saturday where Collision would be moved to a different night that week so that it does not air head-to-head against WWE’s upcoming new Saturday Night’s Main Event show that night.

Meltzer also specualated that AEW likely will be holding their Collision show on Thursday that week.

Meltzer reported that those spoken to stated that TNT currently does not want AEW’s Collision to go against a major WWE show, especially a wrestling show on NBC for Saturdays.

Meltzer also reported that TNT officials might be feeling the same way in regards to wanting Collision to avoid going head-to-head against WWE pay-per-view/PLE events on Saturdays as well. Meltzer reported that TNT probably has other commitments on their network for WrestleMania 41 weekend as another likely reason why they moved that week’s Collision show to a Thursday instead.

“I think the same thing is going to happen — I don’t know that this is as a fact, but the week of Memorial Day weekend, I think that they are going to run, instead of going head-to-head with Saturday Night’s Main Event, I think that they’re going to run on Thursday. And the interesting thing here — I have not been told that, but I was told that they are monitoring the situations when it comes to Saturdays with WWE major shows, in particular Saturday Night’s Main Event, because TBS doesn’t want to go against a wrestling show on NBC, understandably so — or TNT doesn’t. And, you know, perhaps pay-per-views as well. Obviously they don’t want to go against WrestleMania. And also that week, there’s probably other commitments for TNT anyway.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com