WWE Plots NBC Primetime Special Against Competitor AEW’s Summer Pay-Per-View

WWE is flexing its muscles to compete with All Elite Wrestling’s annual summer stadium extravaganza.

AEW, the pro wrestling promotion launched in 2019 by Tony Khan, the son of Jaguars owner Shad Khan, has its annual All In pay-per-view at Globe Life Field in Texas on Saturday, July 12.

Internet sleuths on Monday noticed an interesting nugget in Peacock’s schedule of upcoming WWE premium live events: There was an episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event on NBC scheduled for the same night.

While Peacock has since deleted this listing from its schedule page, Front Office Sports has confirmed that WWE will indeed air the special on that evening.

Spokespeople for WWE and AEW declined to comment.

Saturday Night’s Main Event was a program that WWE (then the WWF) aired on NBC during special occasions in the 1980s.

The event was revived last December after WWE’s new TV deal with USA Network—owned by NBCUniversal—included five Saturday night specials on the NBC broadcast network per year.

The debut of the reimagined program in December featured retro graphics, the WWE return of Jesse “The Body” Ventura as a special guest commentator, and a main event of Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens for the WWE heavyweight championship. 

Presumably, WWE will also stack its card in July in an attempt to entice as many pro wrestling fans as possible to watch its event on broadcast TV—and to skip AEW’s pay-per-view. 

Nevertheless, AEW is well capitalized, as the promotion recently signed a multiyear contract to keep its programming with Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal is reportedly worth about $185 million per year.