When the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots go to halftime next Sunday during Super Bowl LIII, there will be some competition headed their way. For the first time since January 1999, the WWE announced during Sunday night’s Royal Rumble that it will attempt to counter the Super Bowl Halftime Show with the return of Halftime Heat.

Once Super Bowl LIII heads to halftime and in turn ushers in Maroon 5 and company for its halftime show, WWE’s NXT brand will showcase a six-man tag match with NXT champion Tommaso Ciampa, North American champion Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole opposing Velveteen Dream, Ricochet, and Aleister Black. The match will air on WWE Network, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, and WWE.com.

One has to wonder the motivation behind this. While those six wrestlers are outstanding athletes and perhaps the future of the company, it seems to appear that this may turn into a minor push for Vince McMahon’s reboot of the XFL, which doesn’t debut until 2020.

Perhaps the high point of WWE’s promotion of Halftime Heat during the Royal Rumble was them selling an alternative to watching Maroon 5, which was hilarious.

Good on the WWE for shooting their shot against the NFL at the peak of their programming powers.