On Sunday (June 28), NXT made its live debut on The CW with Great American Bash, and while viewers were generally happy with the in-ring action, many were left frustrated by the influx of advertising on their TV screens.
The anger about the amount of ads was reflected on social media, where a lot of WWE fans were peeved about commercials cutting in during the middle of matches.
“They shouldn’t have the NXT PLE’S on the CW. Censored just like the shows and ads in the middle of matches. At least even
though ESPN has ads on the PLE’s they aren’t in the middle of matches,” wrote one person on X, expressing a common sentiment.
“Mid match Picture in Picture ADs in a NXT PLE?!?. Diabolical. Deplorable. Disappointing,” said another X user.
One X post said: “Why is there ads on an nxt ple thats just dumb thats gonna make people change the channel.”
“Why oh why what are you WWE put NXT ple on the cw want to get more ads than we do an actual show Plus we’re supposed to get a preshow but we didn’t get that in Chicago because of the stupid news way to go WWE you’re just ruining wrestling more and more with every passing day,” Tunika Cuevas posted on X.
There was at least one person defending The CW/TKO on X.
In responding to a complaint about the ads, a person using the name jhausen on X asked “how about you not expect a tv channel to not run ads for a three hour show when they still have to make money. They’re obviously going to run the show like they always do.”
The same person later followed up by writing: “i would get being mad for ads that interrupt the match and you can’t see what’s going on, but you can see the match during the ad. that’s why i don’t mind nxt ads. you see the match, just smaller without any commentary or audience noise.”
The Cageside Seats community also shared their displeasure with the amount of GAB ads in the comments section of our site’s Live Blog, written by Josh Jagler.
“What are the odds that a match ends during a split screen commercial?” SabresSince 70 said.
A Cageside user going by The Actual added: “We’re getting COMMERCIALS DURING THE NXT TITLE MATCH??!?!?!?! Pathetic.”
“This was the thing that I was worried about. Commercials are going to ruin NXT PLEs,” VeryNiceVeryEvil wrote.
If you didn’t get a chance to express your feelings about the ads earlier, let us know in the comments here your feelings about it.
