Former Tag Team Champion says NXT would change plans based on AEW Dynamite
Former WWE NXT wrestler Danny Burch recently revealed how NXT would change their plans based on AEW Dynamite.
Recently appearing on Cafe De Rene, Martin Stone [Danny Burch in NXT] recalled how NXT would keep an eye on AEW and change their plans at the last moment based on Dynamite.
“It wasn’t until AEW got announced that [NXT] were like, ‘Yeah, this is the greatest day ever! We’re going live!’ And it was obviously an attempt to try and compete with AEW. It was always funny because everyone’s like, ‘Man, we’re going to crush them.’ Because Shawn [Michaels] used to say, ‘Oh well, you’re just working guys that we didn’t want,’ and blah, blah. And I’m sitting there in the back thinking, ‘Well, actually, no. Technically, we’re going up against the likes of Chris Jericho and people like that.’ And they weren’t concerned with what we were doing,” Burch shared.
AEW Dynamite debuted in October 2019 and straight away went head-to-head with WWE NXT. NXT started airing on the USA Network two weeks before AEW began on TNT. Dynamite and NXT famously clashed on Wednesdays. After a regular clash from 2019 to 2021, the Wednesday night war stopped, and NXT moved to Tuesdays.
“We would have two TVs in Gorilla, and they would be watching AEW, and then they would be trying to change the show to compete with what they were doing. I’ll never forget, me and my tag partner [Oney Lorcan],” Burch continued. “We were scheduled to have a 30-minute main event, and I was really excited about it. We had three segments. We’re the Tag Champs, we were gonna get to go out there and really kill it.
“And then because they were watching [AEW Dynamite] and they heard that there was a women’s match on first, they cut us to 10 minutes with entrances and said, ‘You guys are gonna go on first so we can steal the opening.’ So when they turned around said, ‘We were never in competition,’ you’re full of it. Yes, you were,” Burch finished.
Burch, 44, held the NXT Tag Team titles with Oney Lorcan once during his time in WWE NXT.
Shounak Chakrabarti is an experienced sports journalist with a lifelong passion for athletics and storytelling. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Journalism from the University of Leeds and joined F4WOnline in 2025.
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