AEW Dynamite vs. WWE NXT: Who Won the Feb. 19 Battle of the Wednesday Night War?

There's nothing in the world quite like live wrestling. When you can sense the electricity in the air, hear the people around you respond to every high spot and watch the performers grin and grimace in living color, it's hard not to be swayed and lose yourself in the moment.

I mention this because I was at the State Farm Arena Wednesday night. And, to be frank, that means the playing field this week is a bit tilted toward All Elite Wrestling.

As always, I will do my best to remain unbiased and deliver my unvarnished thoughts about what worked and what missed the mark on both AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT. But one was witnessed from Section 210 and the other from a sectional at a neighboring hotel—perhaps that could make all the difference.

You can share your own grades and hot takes in the comments below.

AEW Dynamite

Where: Atlanta

Main Event: Cody vs. Wardlow (Steel Cage)

Match of the Night: Kenny Omega/"Hangman" Adam Page vs. Lucha Bros (tag team title match) 

Moment We'll Remember: Are you kidding me? Cody sauntering up to the top of a very high steel cage and delivering an incredible moonsault body block onto Wardlow for the win.

Not only was this one of the most daring spots I've seen at a wrestling match, but he also gets extra cool points for executing the move without once sneaking a peak over his shoulder. 

—It's great to see the women's division taking form right before our eyes. Nyla Rose's excellent promo just solidified her in my mind as the right choice as champion in this day and age. 

She says she "breaks b---hes." And you know what? I believe her. I really do. But that didn't stop Kris Statlander, fresh off an excellent match against Shanna, from strolling out to boop the title belt. And the undeniable Big Swole didn't appear particularly shook, either. 

Rose may have frightened Tony Schiavone, but women were lining up to be the next broken toy in the AEW toy box. This spring, look for the division to finally finish thawing and live up to its incredible potential.

        

—I love the way AEW teases angles that fans sense are coming, only to deliver a mini-swerve simply by staying the course. We've all been waiting for the team of Kenny Omega and Adam Page to come apart at the hastily sewn seams. Instead, they just keep beating the best teams on the planet.

This week, it was the Lucha Bros in an absolutely incredible, high-octane match that somehow found a way to fit a great story into an endless stream of spots. 

Likewise, the smart fans are all so sure Arn Anderson will betray Cody that they tense up every time he has the slightest opening for mischief. Even MJF was anticipating it—to his detriment when the cage door sent him spilling into the stands instead of smashing into Cody's head "Freebirds versus Von Erichs" style.

Playing with wrestling tropes can be a lot of fun, for the audience and no doubt for the performers as well. Better still, when the once expected finally does occur after fans are trained to stop anticipating the moment, it will be the surprise it was always intended to be. 

Which, I suppose, is the point.

       

—I already regret using "absolutely incredible" to describe the tag title match. It leaves nothing left to describe the, um, absolutely incredible cage match between Cody and Wardlow. 

AEW has trained its fans to have high expectations. When it brings out a gimmick like a steel cage for the first time, you know it intends to go all-out and deliver a classic. Cody and Wardlow gave us exactly that. 

From Cody's crimson mask to his crazy moonsault off the top of the cage, this match checked every block required to build sustained suspense and excitement. The build to MJF and Cody at AEW Revolution has been textbook pro wrestling. It's nice to have it back in our lives.

        

—I've been in the live crowd to see all the top names in contemporary pro wrestling. There's an energy that sizzles in the building when a true superstar comes out to grace us all with their presence. 

Whether it's Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan, New Japan's Kazuchika Okada or Chris Jericho, it just feels different when someone the entire crowd agrees is a superstar walks out to the ring.

But there are superstars and then there is Cody. And right now, the lead AEW babyface simply belongs in a different class. The crowd all but worships him, enthusiastic from the moment his entrance begins right up until he departs the arena.

After his epic match with Wardlow, with the cameras off, they chanted his name as he told a moving story about his childhood in the wrestling business. Not a soul got up to leave the arena. It was our moment with him, a chance to bask in his glory.

A love affair like the one between Cody and his audience is truly special, the kind of thing that only happens when a promotion has dialed it in perfectly and is giving the crowd exactly what they want. And, right now, Cody is what the AEW audience desires. It's an amazing thing to witness.

—The show opened with more than a dozen wrestlers surrounding the ring and then devolved almost immediately into predictable chaos.

It's hard to know how this came across on television. I expect the announcer and production team helped bring order to it all. Live, it was a question of where to focus your eyes as bedlam was happening everywhere you looked.

Eventually, the overhead angle made it easy to figure out where to look: The wrestlers would all stop working entirely and turn to look at whoever was supposed to be in the spotlight at any given moment.

Again, this probably worked perfectly on television; in person, it was kind of silly to see things grind to a halt everywhere but the one place they wanted your attention.

      

—My real issue with the Battle Royal wasn't really the action. It was still a fun spectacle. It's the inevitability of the outcome that brought it down a notch for me.

In the end, it was always going to be The Young Bucks. And while doing the expected is often the right choice, doing it without introducing any real drama is always going to drain the moment of the kind of emotion you're looking to create.

No matter how loud the chants for Luchasaurus might have been or how good The Butcher and the Blade looked when the spotlight shone on them, there was no competing narrative to give any a scintilla of doubt about what we were going to see at the end.

Where: Winter Park, Florida

Main Event: Roderick Strong vs. Velveteen Dream

Match of the Night: Lio Rush vs. Jordan Devlin (cruiserweight title)

Moment We'll Remember: They may have lost most of their title gold, but The Undisputed Era managed to hold on to their swagger.

Velveteen Dream is a tough act to outshine, but the four friends stood over the top of his battered body to close the show, reminding the rest of the NXT Universe that their reign of terror is far from over.

—Lio Rush remains the most spectacular athlete on either show, a remarkable statement considering the level of talent spread between the two programs.

He and new cruiserweight champion Jordan Devlin ended up with almost 20 minutes to work and made the most of it, delivering cutting-edge wrestling performed at the highest level. 

Devlin is a nice addition to the cruiserweight scene. He has a different pace and feel, helping to rein in the wilder impulses of some of the other guys who might otherwise rush into their next spot rather than let the moment breathe.

These guys are excellent professional wrestlers, and I'm thrilled to see this division move from 205 Live, where they played mostly to an apathetic and exhausted main roster crowd, to Full Sail where NXT fans can give them the love they deserve. 

       

—Tommaso Ciampa is one of the most underrated promos in wrestling. There's nothing theatrical about the man, which only makes his low key, matter-of-fact menace really stand out in a sport that seems to always believe the maxim that bigger is better. 

When Ciampa says he wants to hurt Johnny Gargano, I believe him. Instead, poor Austin Theory served as a Gargano stand-in. Sucks to be him.

       

—You better believe I threw one up the moment I saw my guy Oney Lorcan back on NXT television. Unfortunately, he and partner Danny Burch squared off with the newly crowned BroserWeights in their first appearance since winning gold at Takeover. 

Let's be honest here, you didn't believe Oney and Burch were going to win. Neither did I. Neither did they. Not for a single second. But they managed to deliver an honest effort anyway, and what more can you ask of any man?

—Looks like NXT is trotting out Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic again. To me, they're going to that well once too often. As good as the match is, it's been done to death and does little to showcase Lee at his best. 

I'm ready to see him against some fresh blood, especially a little guy he can toss around. More hoss spots, less career-shortening top-rope spots that are only used for near-falls. It's time for Lee to start developing an act for the long haul.

       

—You rarely see an honest-to-goodness lousy match on either AEW or NXT. Typically, the talent good enough to make television for either promotion is skilled enough to at least deliver a solid effort even when things aren't going exactly to plan. 

But I promised this year I'd try to be more honest about each company's shortfalls even if it hurts feelings. So, let's just call it down the middle here: Chelsea Green versus Kayden Carter was a truly bad bout.

When Bianca Belair interrupted the match to call out Charlotte Flair, I was hoping she would put us all out of our misery. No such luck. 

NXT has the best women's division in the world. But this? This ain't it.

       

—In a vacuum, there was nothing wrong with Velveteen Dream versus Roderick Strong. It was a solid match that allowed Dream to get his feet wet after an extended absence.

It was, however, supposed to be a grudge match. Dream had repeatedly brought up Strong's family in the buildup, but announcer Mauro Ranallo was the only one who seemed to remember there was supposed to be bad blood here.

Certainly neither wrestler managed to evoke a single emotion, going through their standard routines like it was just another Wednesday night. Heck, Strong's Undisputed Era teammates Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly showed more fire when they went after the Dream post-match.

No matter how good wrestling is on a technical level, at its heart, the sport is all about emotion. Dream and Strong delivered that before the bout. To truly capture a crowd, they need the same energy in the actual match too.

AEW: A+

NXT: B-

Overall: When AEW promises something spectacular, it delivers. That kind of reputation is hard to build but easy to ruin.

So far, so good, though.

Unfortunately for NXT, it delivered a clunker just when it felt like it was building momentum. Despite some really good wrestling, this was its worst show of the year.

For the first time in 2020, the Wednesday Night War was a one-sided drubbing.

Winner: AEW

Overall: AEW (6), NXT (2)