Impact Wrestling announces move to Thursdays starting April 8
Starting April 8th, Impact Wrestling will return to Thursday nights on AXS TV and Twitch, keeping their 8 PM Eastern start time.
The change means that every weeknight will now feature professional wrestling from either WWE, AEW, NXT, MLW, NWA or Impact and in some cases, more than one on the same night. Ring of Honor’s product is syndicated, so their day/night of the week varies by station.
Since moving to AXS in October 2019, Impact has had to deal with YouTube competition from AEW Dark and NWA Power — both of which launched in the same month. Power returned this week and with NXT planning on moving to Tuesdays post-WrestleMania, the move to a night with no wrestling made sense.
Throughout its history, Impact has aired its weekly TV on Thursdays in addition to a short run on Mondays (2010) and both Wednesdays and Fridays in the Destination America era. The company has been struggling for viewers, hitting a yearly low this past Tuesday despite a good lineup and the return of AEW World Champion Kenny Omega.
Assuming the NXT move happens, the weekly landscape will now look like this starting in early-April:
- Monday: WWE Raw, AEW Elevation: Dark
- Tuesday: NXT, AEW Dark, NWA Power
- Wednesday: AEW Dynamite, MLW Fusion, WWE Main Event
- Thursdays: Impact Wrestling, NXT UK
- Friday: WWE SmackDown, WWE 205 Live, New Japan Strong
This doesn’t take into account the aforementioned ROH weekly show and the impending new one-hour AEW show coming to TNT at some point this year.