Wheeler Yuta Makes It Clear If AEW Is At War With WWE

AEW has grown quite a bit since the first Double or Nothing and has become WWE's biggest competition in wrestling since WCW was purchased by WWE and shuttered in 2001. While there have been and currently are other major wrestling promotions in the United States — such as Impact Wrestling, the NWA, MLW — no promotion has found itself able to truly challenge WWE for wrestling supremacy in the marketplace. That hasn't stopped some fans from believing we are in the midst of a war between AEW and WWE right now.  But if you were to ask AEW star and former ROH Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta, he'd throw cold water on that idea pretty quickly — and he did while appearing on "MackMania."

"I can't speak for everyone else, but for me, absolutely not," Yuta said empathically. "We're not trying to take everyone out, have a big war — we're trying to put on the best AEW wrestling show that we can put on, and I think that in doing so, we've created this alternative. We've created just like a whole different vibe, a whole different feel to our show." Yuta continued, "The more places there are for people to wrestle, the better it is for wrestling. Because even if we're not trying to, you know, take them out, in a way we are trying to, like you said, put on our best show."

WWE and AEW did compete head-to-head for a stretch when "NXT" and "Dynamite" both aired on Wednesday nights from 8 to 10:00 p.m. EST. AEW regularly got the better of the "NXT," leading to the latter to shift nights for its programming. "NXT" now resides on Tuesday nights on USA Network while "Dynamite" has remained steady in its Wednesday home on TBS. Even on Friday nights, "AEW Rampage" and "WWE SmackDown" do not go head-to-head with the former hitting the airwaves at 10:00 p.m., right after "SmackDown" wraps up on Fox.