Hello folks! This was originally written back on April 12th for the second edition of the Social Suplex Newsletter. As they have now published the third edition I will publish my feature onto GrapPro. I’ll do this after every Social Suplex Newsletter released. Be sure to read all of the great writers and all of their work on the Social Suplex Newsletter.

On April 14, 2025, with AEW Dynamite in Boston, Massachusetts, Dynamite will officially surpass WCW Nitro as the longest running primetime wrestling show in Turner Broadcasting history.

The 289th episode of Dynamite, subtitled “Spring Breakthru” is being seen as a victory lap by AEW President Tony Khan on its longevity in the pro wrestling industry as a challenger brand to World Wrestling Entertainment.

For some folks it’s also a shot at one of Tony Khan’s largest critics in Eric Bischoff, who helmed WCW Nitro as the executive producer and helped pave the way for there to be a primetime wrestling competitor to the then World Wrestling Federation. Nitro went head to head with Raw, WWF’s primetime show on then the USA Network, from 1995 until its end in 2001 when the WWF purchased World Championship Wrestling and officially ended primetime wrestling on Turner until AEW’s inception.

It would be good to look at this achievement from multiple angles. First from what Turner has meant to AEW and Turner (now Warner Bros Discovery), if this should be looked at as a shot to Eric Bischoff, and what the outlook is for Dynamite going forward as the longest running primetime wrestling show in Turner Broadcasting history.

AEW Dynamite 289

I’ve been watching All Elite Wrestling since it was first introduced on cell phones on Being The Elite 132 on YouTube, with the members of The Elite looking at their phones outside the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan with Hangman Adam Page revealing the AEW logo. The television deal was announced in May, prior to the first pay per view from the company in Double or Nothing.

Back then we didn’t know what day it would be on (the original trademark was for a Tuesday Dynamite) but it was a major headstart for AEW compared to their closest comparable in TNA Wrestling, which wouldn’t get their cable primetime deal until 2004, two years after the company’s inception. Then NWA:TNA, they bounced from a Fox Sports Net one hour timeslot on Fridays to a more profitable Spike TV deal on Saturday, with Spike TV replacing Raw with Impact only five days after Raw went back to the USA Network. AEW wasn’t having to run a taped one hour show on the weekend. It was getting two hours during the week in primetime live.

That first episode was a major success on October 2, 2019 with 14,129 fans in the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC with 1.4 million viewers to see the new company. AEW would never hit those numbers again (wrestling shows when debuting or moving to a new network rarely keep the ratings of the first episode) but would get close in 2021 during their hottest period over the summer.

Dynamite faced an immediate threat of NXT, which had just gone from the WWE Network to the USA Network also on Wednesday, debuting two weeks prior on September 18. The Wednesday Night Wars as it was called was WWE’s way of trying to cut the momentum of AEW immediately. They had already once had an episode of EVOLVE Wrestling run live on the WWE Network head to head with AEW’s free charity event Fight for the Fallen back in July. The Wednesday Night Wars, unlike the Monday Night Wars in the 90s, wasn’t a back and forth. Instead, Dynamite would win 63 of 80 weeks by viewership and all but one (December 18) week in the 18-49 key demographic. One could say that might resemble the 83 week run of WCW Nitro against WWF Raw, but this being WWE’s development program boosted by WWE star appearances versus a brand new product, it wasn’t the guns blazing head to head stakes that the Monday Night War presented.

NXT would move to Tuesdays on April 13, 2021, effectively ending the Wednesday Night War. This coincided with some of AEW’s best live viewership of its history, as well as around the time the pandemic ended and eventually AEW Dynamite would run in front of live audiences again. All of this, coupled with a very hot Adam Page versus Kenny Omega storyline, led to a huge amount of momentum for All Elite Wrestling as a company.

That momentum would lead to AEW getting new stars, as well as a new show on Friday nights for one hour called Rampage. The bigger changes would eventually be Dynamite airing live from coast to coast on October 27, 2021, two years since the show began. The show would also move from TNT to TBS on January 5, 2022, due to Warner Bros Discovery signing a deal with the National Hockey League and wanting the Wednesday night slot on TNT for the NHL.

The next significant change to AEW Dynamite would come with the introduction of Saturday Night Collision on TNT, spearheaded by a returning CM Punk after suspension. AEW would treat the two shows as sort of a soft brand split, with wrestlers appearing exclusive to the separate shows. This would end essentially in September after CM Punk was fired. Some wrestlers would still be regularly seen on Collision or Dynamite/Rampage, but it was likely more their schedule choice than separating the rosters. Collision and Dynamite no longer resembles a brand split and talent bounces between the two shows based on need or preference instead of any arbitrary split.

Dynamite’s next big change would be AEW’s new television deal in 2024, leading to Dynamite in 2025 showing on both TBS and the Max app, Warner Bros Discovery’s over the top subscription based online streaming service. Unlike WWE Raw which moved exclusively to Netflix in 2025, AEW would instead simulcast their show on both cable TV and the online streaming service, giving people a choice of how they want to watch the show. Unlike cable TV which has easy to find Nielsen ratings to see how viewership is, Max viewership is not published for public consumption. A report did get released by BJ Bethel of SEScoops saying AEW was averaging 500,000 viewers for Dynamite on Max, with deviation week to week on total streaming minutes.

Getting to 289 episodes for AEW Dynamite is a testament to the confidence Warner Bros Discovery has had in the company from day one. They took a chance on a completely new product with no history and gave them a primetime TV slot. A half decade later and multiple media rights extensions and AEW now exists simulcast on cable and streaming in the United States. That deal with WBD essentially has All Elite Wrestling now turning a profit in 2025.

To surpass WCW Nitro is an exceptional accomplishment, though it more lends to realizing just how short and fleeting the Monday Night War actually was. Only five years from debuting head to head against Raw, being live instead of taped, moving to two hours and eventually even three, beating Raw for 83 weeks before losing the rest, and then the death of the company. In that same time, AEW has stayed live, stayed two hours, stayed on Wednesday, pushed NXT away to Tuesday, and despite live viewership falling (all cable viewership has fallen, Dynamite has at least stayed in the Top 10 in most weeks for 18-49 demo) they have only got stronger with Warner Bros Discovery.

Not About Eric Bischoff

Eric Bischoff on his podcast and Twitter has done a good job making this about himself. As a consistent critic of the product ever since AEW didn’t hire him after a few appearances on TV and appearing on Cody Rhodes short lived reality TV show for TNT Rhodes to the Top (his daughter Montanna had a part in the shows development), Bischoff has claimed his real issue with AEW was a statement (paraphrased) that WCW would still be around if Ted Turner knew 1% about pro wrestling as Tony Khan does.

Bischoff’s criticism has included him attacking Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer for allegedly being biased in favour of AEW over WWE, and essentially trying to predict the doom of the company. For many, it’s Eric jealous of Tony Khan’s success with a wrestling company, especially after his failures with WCW as well as a run as executive producer of TNA Impact.

The problem is that Eric Bischoff was never the owner of WCW or TNA. He was just an executive producer and president. He was never truly given the keys to the kingdom and always had a boss above. He had a similar job as president, but not the entire job. To try to say that beating Nitro in episodes is a shot at Bischoff would be to give Bischoff far too much credit.

Bischoff is a loud critic of All Elite Wrestling and that’s fine. He has a podcast he does between his time as a real estate agent. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter how he feels about it, and to ask him is to make it about a man who aside from scripted appearances on WWE reality shows and appearances in the Major League Wrestling company on YouTube, is to make it about something who really has no skin in the game anymore.

Bischoff wasn’t relieved of his position in WCW as President when the WWF purchased the company in 2021. He was relieved on September 10, 1999. His appearances after that in the company was only as an on-screen character. His last WCW Nitro was episode 207 in Miami, Florida. AEW Dynamite surpassed that with episode 208 in Broomfield Colorado on September 27, 2023.

So no, this isn’t about a man who didn’t own World Championship Wrestling, who didn’t own Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, who has no ownership role in a wrestling company today, who declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017, and now works as a podcaster and real estate agent. There’s plenty of podcasters out there with no role in pro wrestling anymore that think they matter when it comes to the state of All Elite Wrestling. Eric is merely one of many.

So no, I don’t want AEW to take a potshot at him on the episode, nor do I think AEW fans should be treating this as a victory against Eric Bischoff. Eric’s run on WCW Nitro ended at 207, not 288, and to give him credit for the totality of WCW Nitro just because he helped kickstart it with Ted Turner is too much credit. Let this be the last sentence I have to bring Eric up.

Spring Breakthru and Beyond

The history of AEW Dynamite is one that’s already had some ups and downs. Some they couldn’t control like the pandemic, and some they could like the over-reliance of WWE stars over their original and homegrown talent.

The company used to run larger arenas they couldn’t fill, but in 2025 they’ve been trying to run a lot more venues meant for the amount of fans they now attract. The days of averaging 4,000 with the occasional 8,000+ are essentially gone, now with 2,500 to 3,500 being the regular average for Dynamite. The company isn’t even trying it with venues they have always drawn more in, such as going to the Masonic Temple Theatre in Detroit instead of trying Little Caesars Arena.

Declining attendance could cause one to worry, and it’s certainly something AEW will want to turn around. They will want to fill these arenas to the brim so they can look into trying the larger arenas in the future. That said, the choice of moving to smaller venues has helped the TV product just in crowd reactions. The show sounds hotter in the smaller venues compared to the large hollow NHL/NBA arenas.

I think of AEW Dynamite having three eras. The first era, running from October 2019 to September 2021, was the start of the company, surviving the pandemic, and coming out in their hottest period with a focus on Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, and The Elite. That era would end with the debuts of CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Adam Cole, almost an embarrassment of riches of stars with WWE and NXT pedigree.

The second era, from October 2021 to October 2024, is all about the volatile experience of growth for the company. A time of highs and lows, from the focus shifting from The Elite to the former WWE stars. Everything involving CM Punk from his championship win to injury to Brawl Out to Collision to One Bill Phil to getting fired at All In: London, the largest stadium pay per view event of all time for All Elite Wrestling. Some of the biggest events in AEW history is in this era, along with the departure of Elite member and AEW co-founder Cody Rhodes, a major increase in how many AEW shows were produced, the price of tickets going up and down, an attempt to build around MJF in 2023, followed by spending 2024 paying tribute to the end of the career of Sting and the full-time career of Bryan Danielson. The end of this era coincides with Danielson losing to Jon Moxley, one of the central focuses of the first era.

We’re now entering the third era, from October 2024 and beyond. Much of the volatility of the second era has led to an All In stadium event in Texas that is hoping, not as, hoping to sell a quarter of the tickets All In London 2023 did, or half the tickets All In London 2024 sold. Jon Moxley’s heel champion persona has been a major negative, wrestling some of the worst championship main events in AEW history, with nobody sure yet if it’s doing negative damage to the company that will be hard to recover due to the suffocating heat, or if his eventual loss will be worth it in making a suitable headliner for the company in the following weeks. The simulcast between TBS and Max looks to be a success for total viewers, even if it isn’t a success in selling more seats to TV tapings. Despite the negativity of Jon Moxley’s AEW Men’s World Championship run, Timeless Toni Storm as AEW Women’s World Champion has been one of the best parts of the company week in and week out.

This third era of AEW will see the company make it to the 300th episode of Dynamite at the start of July 2025, will run Pay Per Views like Double or Nothing, All In, and Forbidden Door in fresh cities/countries, and eventually deal with the contract renewal or experiation of major AEW first year names like Chris Jericho and Jim Ross in 2025, as well as the leaders of the first era in Jon Moxley and The Elite in 2027. Time will tell if this third era can see the success of the first era, or continue the unsteady waves of turmoil and progress in the second era.

While AEW has had its ups and downs, those ups and downs are what contrast it from WCW Nitro. Nitro started hot, got hotter, then became the hottest primetime wrestling program in all of television in America. And then it stopped being hot, and it declined, and its decline continued until it lost half of its audience and soon the entire company was sold to their competition. There was no up and down. There was no moments of positive progress or increases. It was up and down and then out.

AEW Dynamite has had its low points, from the Dark Order beatdown in 2019, Warhorse in 2020, the Cody/Ogogo weigh in from 2021, stripping CM Punk and The Elite of their titles due to suspension in 2022, CM Punk being fired on the Dynamite in 2023 before All Out, All In footage in 2024, and the suffocating heat of Death Riders so far in 2025. While the Death Riders might be a wait and see, AEW has been able to survive all of its low points in previous years to rebound.

A large reason for its rebound has been the focus on great in-ring pro wrestling, something WCW Nitro would only make important in the undercard. In the dying days of WCW Nitro, the show focused on a WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Tournament, that emphasized the high flying and skilled wrestling ability of the roster. It was too little too late.

AEW has, for the majority of Dynamite’s existence, always tried to be the best possible pro wrestling product in ring. To me that’s the key to its continued success under the Turner umbrella now known as Warner Bros Discovery. People want to watch great pro wrestling week in and week out. It’s why AEW got to this milestone, it’s how they will get to episode 300, 400, 500, and beyond.