Fresh off the No Mercy Premium Live Event on September 27, "WWE NXT" once again emanated from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida on September 30, but the stars of WWE's developmental brand had to share the airwaves with the stars of TNA Wrestling ahead of the "Showdown" TV special on October 7. The two rosters had a summit to end the show, but that ended in a mass brawl as both sides are preparing for one of the biggest nights in their respective histories.
With that said, "NXT" didn't get the traditional boost that many shows usually get coming off of a PLE or pay-per-view. According to Wrestlenomics and The Programming Insider, the September 30 edition of "NXT" averaged a total of 572,000 viewers, a drop of 135,000 viewers from the previous week, making it the least watched episode of "NXT" so far in 2025. The drop was even greater in the 18-49 demographic as the show posted a 0.10, another record low for "NXT" this year and a drop from the 0.12 number posted seven days earlier.
While some fans might see the sharp decrease in viewership as a cause for concern, there is a reason for why numbers have decreased. Nielsen, who calculate the TV rating figures, recently announced that they will be using a new system to calculate ratings. Instead of using "Panel"data, which took a sample of households from around the country and generated an average number, the "Big Data + Panel" system will now be used to include those who watched on set-top boxes and Smart TVs, while also getting a much larger sample of households. This system was implemented before the September 26 episode of "WWE SmackDown," which also saw a steep decline in viewership, but still stayed near the top of the nightly rankings.
