Why TKO (WWE) is counter-programming AEW

We all read this in the news—WWE is on a mission right now to make sure AEW doesn’t become competition. But do we truly know what the sudden motivation is for this move? It’s not like they tried to kill their momentum before, especially under Vince McMahon.

So I decided to try and answer that question. And while everything I write in this column is pure speculation, it’s based on things I’ve read over the years about Endeavor and how they do business.

Let’s start from the beginning, because I feel there are three eras of WWE when it comes to the business side. You have the family-owned company era—this is the era where Vince was willing to do anything possible to make sure his company was successful. Then there’s the publicly-owned era—this is where Vince couldn’t care less about the so-called competition because he was making a lot of money. And now, the TKO era.

For the sake of this column, I won’t tackle the family-owned era because we already know what happened during that time, and I actually agree with a lot of what Vince did to ensure the company’s survival.

So let’s start when the company went public, as a setup for what’s happening right now—especially the last few years of that era.

WWE went public in 1999, near the end of the Monday Night Wars. By then, they already knew they had won, and WCW was holding on by a thread. Vince didn’t really bother trying to kill WCW because they knew the company would self-destruct, which it did in 2001. What they didn’t expect was that AOL/Time Warner didn’t want wrestling on their networks, which led to the Bischoff deal being canceled and opened the door for WWE to acquire WCW for very cheap.

Then for almost 18 years, WWE operated with virtually no competition. Yes, you had TNA, but let’s face it—no matter how hard they tried, they never had a real chance against WWE.

So during that time, Vince focused on his product. But he became complacent, and WWE started to feel boring, which alienated parts of the fanbase. Then in 2019, AEW became a reality and gained a lot of momentum right from the start, especially with Jericho, Cody, and Moxley as top stars.

Now, a lot of fans still buy into the false narrative that WWE tried to kill AEW before they started by moving NXT from the WWE Network to USA to compete with AEW. That’s a made-up story. It was reported long before AEW was a thing that WWE was trying to get NXT on cable TV, and a deal with USA was signed before AEW had their own TV deal. So this was already in the works. If I’m being honest, AEW were the ones trying to go to war with WWE because it fit their narrative of being the underdog against the corporate giant.

Even setting that aside, one thing was clear: during AEW’s first few years, Vince didn’t see them as competition and focused on his own product—especially during the pandemic, which was an uncertain time that forced some wrestling companies to shut down.

So Vince let AEW gain momentum while WWE stayed in its lane. Meanwhile, in 2016, Endeavor bought UFC—and the world of MMA changed for the worse. UFC tried to eliminate the competition by any means necessary. Bellator was their main rival and did well for a time, mostly because they offered women’s MMA, which UFC wasn’t doing yet. That didn’t last long. Once UFC saw how popular women’s MMA was, they poached Bellator’s biggest stars and started their own women’s division.

Bellator tried to pivot by using legends in featured bouts, which worked briefly—despite the fights being awful (we all remember how bad Shamrock vs. Ortiz was). But it wasn’t sustainable, and Bellator eventually faded into obscurity. Meanwhile, UFC continued delivering high-quality fights and used that momentum to wipe Bellator off the map.

Fast forward to the Vince scandal, which ended his reign as WWE chairman and led to the company being sold to Endeavor. I won’t go into detail about the scandal itself, but it was so significant that Vince was forced to retire and let Triple H and Stephanie run the company. He came back and sold WWE in what seemed like a desperate attempt to maintain some level of control. And for a few months, he did. When the sale went through, he was promoted and became second-in-command under Ari Emanuel. But his past caught up with him, and that gave Endeavor the opening they needed to push him out and replace him with Nick Khan—which, frankly, I think was the plan all along.

Since then, we’ve seen a major shift in how WWE operates. Ticket prices skyrocketed, similar to how expensive UFC tickets are. They stopped running house shows. They started working with other promotions—something Vince never would’ve done. And most importantly, they started counterprogramming AEW.

Let’s focus on those last two points.

First, WWE working with other promotions is mostly a business move. It looks good to support smaller companies by sending WWE talent, and in return, WWE gets a chance to scout potential stars they might want to sign.

The WWE/TNA partnership is also a smart strategy. It gives WWE a way to help prop up a company that they know doesn’t have the money to be real competition, effectively blocking AEW from becoming a strong number two.

Then there’s the counterprogramming. This is WWE’s way of making sure AEW doesn’t gain any momentum. It’s similar to what UFC did to Bellator. Endeavor doesn’t want to kill their competition—they want to make them irrelevant while raking in the most money. They think they can pull it off the same way they did in MMA.

But here’s the problem: by trying to kill AEW’s momentum, they’re also killing NXT’s. Both brands serve the same fanbase, and you can see it reflected in ticket sales. Every time NXT has run head-to-head with AEW, their numbers suffer.

NXT Great American Bash had awful ticket sales, and Heatwave looks to be in the same boat. So it seems like TKO is willing to sacrifice NXT just to make sure AEW doesn’t build momentum.

While I understand the business reasoning behind the counterprogramming, it honestly doesn’t make sense to me. AEW isn’t and will likely never be real competition to WWE. Trying to make them irrelevant doesn’t serve anyone. If AEW fades into an afterthought, WWE’s product will become stale again—and that will hurt their bottom line.

In the end, I believe it would be better if WWE just let AEW do their own thing while focusing on their own creative. That way, both companies thrive—and that’s what’s best for the fans.