WWE learned something in Edinburg on Sunday, and it was not what the company went in expecting.
AAA Ola de Calor and NXT Heatwave ran back to back at the Bert Ogden Arena, with the AAA show first and NXT second. On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer says the order was the mistake.
I heard from even people in the company about that Sunday show, and it was an eye-opener, I would say, because they put NXT second and they put AAA first thinking that we’re in the United States and NXT is bigger than AAA.
The building did not stick around for the second half.
And all the NXT people, it was pretty tough. A lot of the audience left after the AAA show. It was like a Collision, where people are just leaving after the thing. They said that maybe half the people were left for the main event.
One name got through, and that was Zilla Fatu, who worked the main event.
The Mexicans were all way, way, way more over than the NXT wrestlers, other than Zilla Fatu. They said Zilla Fatu was so over in that building, but nobody else. Not Kendal Grey, not Tony D, or Myles Borne or anything like that. Even Nattie, who they figured would be super, super over, and really was not.
His takeaway is about the running order.
It was a Mexican audience that came to see lucha libre, and some of them stayed. But the thing is, the learning thing is, if you do this, you should probably put NXT first, rather than put them in three hours into the show.
Zilla Fatu is a Texan trained by Booker T at Reality of Wrestling in Houston, which explains his reaction. He was in the main event, where Grayson Waller stole the NXT Championship from Tony D’Angelo after Cruz Montana had done the damage. That match ran past 21 minutes at the end of a 13-match day.
Three titles changed hands on the NXT card. Kelani Jordan took the NXT Women’s Championship from Kendal Grey, Jackson Drake beat Myles Borne for the North American title, and Waller left with the top belt. Natalya worked a submission match with Jaida Parker earlier in the night.
