WWE reportedly learned an important lesson following Sunday’s back-to-back doubleheader featuring AAA Ola de Calor and NXT Heatwave at the Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg, Texas.
With the AAA event taking place first followed immediately by NXT Heatwave, company officials were reportedly caught off guard by audience movement and crowd reactions throughout the evening.
Half The Crowd Left Before NXT Main Event
Speaking on F4WOnline, Dave Meltzer reported that WWE executives viewed the fan turnout as an “eye-opener” after booking NXT to headline the evening under the assumption that the brand held greater drawing power in the United States.
“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,” Meltzer reported. “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.”
According to Meltzer, venue attendance dropped drastically as the night progressed into the NXT portion of the card:
“They said that maybe half the people were left for the main event,” he continued. “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.”
Lucha Libre Audience Stays Cool On NXT Roster
The heavily Hispanic audience in Edinburg remained primarily invested in the lucha libre action, leaving several established NXT talents with quieter reactions than WWE management anticipated.
“Not Kendal Grey, not Tony D, or Myles Borne or anything like that,” Meltzer added. “Even Nattie, who they figured would be super, super over, and really was not. 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.”
The venue dynamics served as a clear indicator for how future joint-promotional doubleheaders should be structured to prevent crowd burnout and walkouts.
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