Throughout this year to date, AEW served an increased number of world championship bouts on television. There have even been a few title changes, such as Darby Allin’s shocking win over MJF and Kenny Omega’s glorious victory also over MJF. That strategy appears to have paid off, at least for this week.
In a video post on social media, Tony Khan revealed that the July 8 episode of Dynamite featuring Omega versus MJF had high viewership ratings. Khan stated that, “This was the most viewers on TBS for
Wednesday night Dynamite in two years since Blood & Guts 2024.”
Wrestlenomics reports that Dynamite had 773,000 viewers on TBS.
In an interview with Case Lowe of Q101 in Chicago, Khan explained why there are so many more world title bouts on television this year. Lowe pointed out an interesting stat that there have been 13 world title matches on TV in 2026, and there were only 11 combined in 2024 and 2025. Khan replied about giving great wrestling to fans, including those who can’t afford to purchase the PPVs.
Well, I think we’re delivering at the highest level. and it’s great having these championship fights. And when AEW’s at our very best, I think you can tune in and expect to see the top stars fighting each other in huge matches and big rivalries. And to me, this has been some of the best AEW TV ever. It’s certainly some of the most world championship defenses and major main events that we’ve ever had in a calendar year, and we’re only halfway into the year.
And I do think that having great wrestlers, you mentioned Darby Allin, also you have to give a lot of credit to MJF, who’s been a fighting champion, much more so than previous incarnations of MJF, by the way.
And I do think that having all these great championship fights on Dynamite, on Collision, on the major events, and having the very best pay-per-views, our fans are having their cake and eating it, too. You get the very best on TV and a great wrestling product for the fans who can’t necessarily afford the pay-per-views that you can certainly expect to get such a high standard watching AEW on weekly TV, Wednesdays on TBS, Saturdays on TNT, or streaming everything on HBO Max.
And I think there are some fans that necessarily maybe can’t buy every pay-per-view, and they still are getting great wrestling every week. And the cool thing about the AEW pay-per-views, they’re worth it. I try to put out an incredible pay-per-view every time, because I never want to take for granted the people spending the money on the tickets or on the pay-per-view and delivering at an even higher standard than the incredibly high standard that we try to hold ourselves to week to week in terms of delivering great matches and great episodes of wrestling television.
So, that is the goal and I think through these past few years, I think we’ve been doing a very strong job of promoting big title fights, and now this year more than ever, there’s been a lot of big world championship matches on AEW TV. And it feels like for the last couple years, the quality of the TV continues to deliver at maybe the highest level ever in AEW. We’ve been putting on these fantastic pay-per-views for years, and I do think we’ve tried to hold a really high standard at TV and right now I think we’re delivering on it.
If rumors are true that MJF pushed for the match against Omega to be on Dynamite rather than PPV, then Maxwell “Moneybags” Friedman actually did a favor for all the poors. Two favors, to be exact. First, we were treated to the PPV-level world title bout on TV. Second, we all got to enjoy seeing that scumbag lose to the fan favorite Omega.
Thanks, Tony Khan. And thanks, MJF.
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