Shawn Michaels Addresses WWE & NXT Counter-Programming AEW Double or Nothing

It's going to be a busy weekend for wrestling fans, with several big shows on tap from the world's top promotions.

WWE presents Night of Champions this Saturday from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. On Sunday night, WWE is running the NXT Battleground premium live event head-to-head with AEW Double or Nothing.

According to Shawn Michaels, WWE's Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative, fans shouldn't read into the fact that WWE is counter-programming All Elite Wrestling's latest PPV offering.

On Thursday, HBK took part in a media call to promote Battleground. SEScoops correspondent Ella Jay did live coverage of call on Twitter for Fightful.

Michaels addressed the topic of NXT going head-to-head with AEW Double or Nothing. He doesn't think this is a predatory move by WWE, but simply a matter of WWE wanting to run big events during the Memorial Day holiday weekend. When asked if he expects WWE will continue scheduling events opposite AEW, he said:

"To the best of my knowledge, no. For me, and for us, the WWE as a whole, as I’m always honest with you guys, clearly there are people far more important than me that make decisions that they don’t tell me about. For us, this was about a big Memorial Day weekend for WWE."

Michaels says this weekend is a bit of a 'throwback' weekend for WWE, when they used to run WWE and NXT major shows back-to-back.

"Everyone felt it was a good combination to have NXT on Sunday night and create a big WWE weekend for WWE fans. For me, personally, I would love to have as many standalone weekends on us as we can get.

Michaels said NXT running up against the AEW pay-per-view is no different than when WWE shows compete against other pro sports like the NBA or NHL. "As much as I’m a basketball fan or NHL fan, it thrills me when the playoffs are done," he said. "The less competition we can get, the better.”