Chris Jericho Says That AEW Won This Week's Ratings War, Explains Key Demographic

As noted, there has been heated discussion surrounding this past Wednesday's ratings war between WWE NXT and AEW Dynamite. NXT won the night with overall total viewers at 759,000 compared to AEW's 715,000, however, Dynamite once again beat NXT in the prime 18-49 demographic.

As seen above, Chris Jericho opened up about the ratings debate between both shows during his Saturday Night Special YouTube show. He also discussed his match with Orange Cassidy at last week's AEW Fyter Fest: Night Two.

"It was a great week on AEW on Dynamite, and a lot of people enjoyed the Orange Cassidy match, which was one of my favorites that I've had, possibly ever," Jericho said. "It was definitely one of my favorites that I've had over the past few years and I'll tell you the reason why, it's because my idea and my goal is to build Orange up into a legit, main event superstar, and I think we started that."

Jericho revealed that he disliked Cassidy's gimmick at first and thought it was poking fun at the pro wrestling business. He says that he soon realized how impressive Cassidy really was when it came to getting over with the crowd.

"When I see Orange Cassidy, when I first saw his gimmick, I thought this was sh-t. I don't like this guy, he's making a mockery of the business," Chris said. "And then I started realizing, hey Jericho, get your head out of your ass and realize that the reason that he's over is because he's doing something different and people enjoy that. And that's what wrestling is all about, that's what show business is all about, doing something different that makes you stand out and that makes people get behind what you're doing.

"So, I really started getting into what Orange was doing," Chris added. "Back in the days when we used to have fans in the arenas, people really enjoyed him, and enjoyed his work, and enjoyed his gimmick and I thought, 'You know, we can really do something with this guy.' So that's what we decided to do, and I really enjoyed the match. I think we really showed him in a different light so that all his haters and all of his critics can eat their words about this."

Chris took his time explaining why, he believes, AEW actually "won" during this week's ratings war between NXT and Dynamite. He says that television networks are focusing primarily on the response the show gets to the 18-49 demographic when it comes to ratings.

"Listen, it's very important to have the most viewers, and NXT definitely got the win this week – congratulations to them," Jericho said. "But this is not being a sore loser or anything like that, but, we didn't lose, we won. If you know anything about television, there's a certain demographic that advertisers and that networks care about the most. Not being demeaning to anybody not in this age bracket, but 18-49 is what advertisers care about the most. It's called the 'The Demo' and what that means is that the advertisers of all the products, they want to appeal to a certain age group.

"And this 18-49 age group, they feel, is their top group of people that they want to appeal to... Not that people younger or older aren't important, they obviously are, but they are really into this demo of 18-49," he continued. "And every single week, AEW wins the demo. And not only win the demo, we crush the demo, and every quarter we win the demo as well.

"So, you might say, 'Well, that doesn't make any sense! It's all about total viewers'. And it's very important to have total viewers but this 'demo', this magical 'demo' that I've been talking about on Twitter and online, it's a real thing," Jericho added. "And if you ask any television executive, any television station, any advertiser what they believe in the most, it is this magical, mythical demo, and we win it every week. So for that, you're welcome."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Saturday Night Special with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.