Wrestling fans who enjoy following AEW and WWE’s products were faced with a dilemma last night (June 28) with NXT’s Great American Bash PLE airing at the same time as AEW’s Forbidden Door PPV. What to watch live, and what to try to catch-up on later… hopefully before this week’s fallout on television? Or go with a multi-screen experience, knowing you’ll miss some things and quite possibly have a headache and maybe some nausea later from over-stimulation?
Late last summer, we were forced into the same
decisions. All In Texas went against 2025’s Great American Bash in the afternoon and Goldberg’s retirement in Atlanta on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Last year’s Forbidden Door and NXT Heatwave were the same August Sunday, then All Out moved to the afternoon of Sept. 20 after WWE announced their ESPN deal… and the Wrestlepalooza event created for its launch on that same Saturday.
The world’s two biggest pro wrestling companies had pretty much avoided each other since, until last night. And during this year’s Bash, WWE revealed that it won’t be avoiding All In this year either.
AEW hasn’t announced a start time for their return to London’s Wembley Stadium on Sun., Aug. 30, but it’s assumed All In 2026 will begin in the early afternoon U.S. time.
WWE will counter with a three-hour free YouTube stream of a live AAA show from Edinburg, Texas. That starts at noon Eastern. It will be immediately followed by NXT Heatwave on The CW at 3 p.m. ET. The press release, which includes ticket information for the shows at Bert Ogden Arena, can be found here.
Edinburg is near the U.S./Mexico border in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, and its population is close to 90% Latino. WWE’s used AAA talent in NXT and vice-versa on-and-off since acquiring the lucha libre promotion last year. At the Bash, an Hijo del Vikingo Latin American title defense was announced for this Tuesday’s NXT.
Meanwhile at the post-Forbidden Door media scrum, AEW president and head of creative Tony Khan was asked (by Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, which will surely feed some internet theories) about WWE’s move…
“It’s good. It’s double the compliment Jimmy Crockett got*. That’s good, twice as nice as they were to Jimmy. That’s great. I’ll be sure to take it that way. I think we’re going to have a great AEW All In and really looking forward to going back to Wembley Stadium. It’s going to be the biggest night in AEW wrestling.
“I can’t speak to what the other promotions are doing but I did see that announcement. I saw that with our own show going on tonight, so not a lot I can do other than just hope we have a really good show and plan and prepare that we will have a very good show for AEW All In.”
Let us know what you make of WWE’s “compliment” to TK, and if you follow both companies how you plan to handle your final August/summer bank holiday weekend, in the comments below.
* A reference to the then-WWF’s war with Jim Crockett Promotions, which included running the first Survivor Series to counter-program Starrcade in 1987, which JCP was promoting as their version of WrestleMania.
