Last Saturday’s “Playoff Palooza” episode of AEW Collision started about 20 minutes later than normal. As the name probably gave away, that was because it following TNT’s coverage of the NBA Playoffs.
And if you’re a wrestle ratings watcher, you know that’s usually a good thing for AEW’s numbers. For the April 26 episode of Collision, it helped provide the show’s third best-ever viewership at 707,000. It’s .21 demo rating wasn’t as noteworthy, because the show reached that level or higher just a month ago — when the NCAA Tournament was airing before it.
Those numbers are from Wrestlenomics, which also tells us that Collision’s lead-in, a thriller between the Nuggets & Clippers won by Denver on a buzzer beater, won the night among cable originals with 3.39 million viewers and a 1.12 rating among 18-49 year olds. Collision finished fourth among cable originals on the night. ESPN2’s coverage of UFC Fight Night (.24 demo rating from 599K total viewers) and TBS’ NHL Playoff game between Toronto & Ottawa (.22 from 787K) also finished ahead of AEW.
Collision starts at 8 p.m. sharp this weekend, but moves to TBS while TNT airs an Avengers movie marathon to tie into the release of the new Marvel movie, Thunderbolts*. We’ll see what results that experiment produces, then add those numbers to our usual rundown of Collision’s viewership and demo rating over the past year:
* Aired outside its usual Saturday 8-10 p.m. ET primetime slot
** Ran directly opposite a WWE show or event
† Ran the same day as a WWE event
Results from the latest Collision can be found here.