WWE SmackDown-AEW Rampage Weekend's Strife Attracts Fans Globally

A few hours ago, All Elite Wrestling's (AEW) finalized its exceptional episode of the company's two-year show, AEW Dynamite. Saturday's episode could be considered as a continuation of AEW's CEO Tony Khan's strategy to impress wrestling fans worldwide, after WWE SmackDown, and AEW Rampage came face-to-face competition early Saturday, at 2 am in Cairo time.

All wrestling fans around the world were super excited for such extra wrestling segments in 4 hours! Previously, fans used to have a two-hour SmackDown show and one-hour AEW Rampage that kicks off on another network a few seconds after the end of WWE's brand.

https://twitter.com/SKWrestling_/status/1449187605497720832

But, things got crazier after WWE decided to stretch the length of its SmackDown for 30 commercial-free minutes because this was the last episode of the blue-colored roaster before the highly anticipated Crown Jewel event that will be hosted in Riyadh, KSA, that's why the name of the episode was rebranded to "Friday Night Supersized Smackdown"

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1449148078825611268

Therefore, AEW's CEO Khan dealt with WWE's decision as if WWE called AEW to face-to-face escalation! As the last 30 minutes of Smackdown will be parallel with the first 30 minutes of AEW Rampage which could impact the recently-founded show's viewership.

https://twitter.com/TonyKhan/status/1446679936903925772

Shortly, Khan decided to follow the stream and push the matters a little bit higher as he situated heavy and rocking Rampage card by scheduling several matches for CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Chris Jericho, and Sammy Guevara who are among the top popular faces in the corporation.

https://twitter.com/TonyKhan/status/1449062700923895810

At the same time, WWE announced a contract signing session between the Beast, Brock Lesnar, and the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns, for their WWE Universal Championship match at Crown Jewel in the presence of the controversial icon Paul Hyman, alongside several competitions during the episode including Smackdown's semi-final for King of the Ring tournament between Fin Bàlor, and Sami Zayn, street fight match between The Usos, and the Street Profit for WWE SmackDown Tag Team titles.

[gallery jnewsslider_title="WWE Smackdown Card, Friday, 15 Oct 2021" ids="279664,279665,279666,279670,279671,279676"]

After the WWE announced their card for Friday night, AEW responded by gifting all fans around the world with a full "buy-in" show for one hour for free on Youtube, pre the main show.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1449182747877167107

After those two announcements, all wrestling fans around the world went crazy as they will have more than 90 minutes of parallel strong segments.

https://twitter.com/SKWrestling_/status/1449615026168295430

Fans took major social media platforms to express their thoughts and to follow the competitions running in two shows at the same time. Therefore, the majority of worldwide Twitter trends from 2 am to 6:30 am in Cairo time were about wrestling such as AEW Rampage, WWE Smackdown, Roman Reigns, CM Punk, and others.

https://twitter.com/MATTHARDYBRAND/status/1449194183508602880

Here in the middle east, the majority of Arabs, especially, Saudi Arabian wrestling fans stuck to Twitter spaces to discuss the two shows live and giving their opinions and predictions while watching the shows, one of them is Mohd_HBK who hosted the most popular wrestling space on Twitter in the Middle East.

https://twitter.com/MohdHBK_1978/status/1449153711423557635

Without a doubt, it was a totally insane night, especially, the audience who shifted between the most important segments in two shows such as Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar's appearance in Smackdown, or CM Punk vs Matt Sydal match in AEW, Bryan Danielson vs Minoru Suzuki in AEW, or Fin Balor against Sami Zayn in King of the Ring semi-final match.

https://twitter.com/SKWrestling_/status/1449191245411241985

https://twitter.com/SKWrestling_/status/1449209711463522307

The final show at the night ended at 5 am in Cairo time, however, the reviews and the online analysis of the shows didn't end until the next morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5F1PzU6fZA

Until now, the highly anticipated figures would identify who is the winner of such an epic wrestling war night are not announced yet.

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/1449521197440376840

However, AEW Rampage succeeded in securing first place on the Twitter worldwide trends list since the beginning of the Buy-In show on Youtube, taking Smackdown to the second place.

https://twitter.com/SKWrestling_/status/1449195477967196160

In addition, the total views of AEW Rampage's Buy-In Youtube show reached 783, 000 until now.

Therefore, the war between both corporations this weekend continued to Saturday, as AEW moved its Monday's Dynamite to Saturday to make use of the impact.

https://twitter.com/TonyKhan/status/1449520720392990723

Until now, all fans still look forward to the two corporations' upcoming steps towards such a war; however, the war between WWE and AEW is not over yet, it is just a start, it is just "escalated."

https://youtu.be/ipHzmucwYtc