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This Saturday night, AEW hosted their "Battle of the Belts" special from the "Bojangles Coliseum" in Charlotte, North Carolina. Now that the dust has settled on this exciting night of action, the TV viewership numbers have arrived.
Despite competing against a big NFL game on the same night, Saturday night's show drew an impressive 704,000 viewers with a 0.27 in the 18-49 key demographic, per Brandon Thurston.
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The event saw three title matches. The night opened with the first-ever Interim TNT Championship match between Sammy Guevara and Dustin Rhodes, with the former picking up the victory. A unification match with TNT Champion Cody Rhodes has yet to be organized.
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Following this, Ricky Starks successfully defended the FTW championship against Matt Sydal. The night was capped off with a women's championship match between Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D. and Riho. Despite a hard-fought effort from the challenger, Baker ended the night as she started it, with the championship.
The strong numbers are a promising sign for All Elite Wrestling in the future, as Saturday's event was the first of four scheduled specials on TNT. It's unclear when the next one will be, but Tony Khan will undoubtedly be looking forward to booking them.
Battle of the Belts beat AEW Rampage in the ratings
Despite a good start to the year for Rampage, "Battle of the Belts" managed to outdraw AEW's regular Friday night programming.
With 704,000 to 588,000 on Rampage, some fans may be wondering whether the company's second show should potentially move timeslots to gain a better foothold amongst viewers.
Outside of the August 20, 2021 edition of Rampage, the show has only drawn more than 1 million viewers on a single occasion. Meanwhile, Dynamite on Wednesdays has a 100% success rate of 1 million+ viewers in 2022 after just one show.
Tony Khan will be hoping to gain more viewers throughout 2022, and if this past Saturday night is anything to go by, it's only going to get better for All Elite Wrestling.
