Much of pro wrestling’s counter-programming war just doesn’t get me excited. Wednesday, however, my interest is piqued.

NXT just happened to get bumped from Tuesday — this time by chance due to the midterm elections — to head-to-head with AEW’s Dynamite’s Blood & Guts on Wednesday. What it’s led to is maybe one of the most fascinating matchups yet, as AEW’s more crowded pay-per-view calendar, thanks to the addition of Redemption in July, may have caught up to it. 

This has been one of the more uninspiring builds to the Blood & Guts matches since they began in 2021. At least on the men’s side, all of the babyfaces have had issues with the Don Callis Family — AEW’s top heel faction, but it is still a rather loosely thrown-together babyface squad of Will Ospreay, Adam Copeland, Darby Allin, Steven Borden and the Young Bucks that is far more about the match spectacle than any grand storyline or blow-off. A twist in the match itself is certainly possible.

The women’s side feels even more randomly thrown together in a match that just has the top women’s babyfaces teaming against all its best heels, minus Mercedes Mone and Marina Shafir. All of this is happening with Revolution, one of the company’s top four pay-per-views coming a week later. That’s a lot of quality booking to cram into your television, and right now AEW’s model just isn’t set up to handle that kind of overload. AEW did lose a Dynamite to a fantastic show honoring Benjamin “Pac” Satterley after his tragic death.