Tag: Aew Njpw Forbidden Door

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door sells out, 3000 remaining tickets sold in minutes

Posted on by Josh Nason

The remaining 3000 tickets for June’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view sold out in minutes Friday as part of the public onsale, ensuring the event at Chicago’s United Center will be sold out.

That follows Thursday’s presale that saw more than 11,000 tickets sold in under 40 minutes, meaning the Sunday, June 26th event will have more than 14,000 fans in attendance. The final number will depend on how many production hold tickets will be released.

Announced several weeks ago, it will be AEW’s first co-promoted event with NJPW. The two have had a strong working relationship over the past year with talents from both companies working in the other. 

Although the company is no stranger to Chicago, it will be AEW’s second visit to the United Center. The first was last August’s First Dance edition of Rampage that saw CM Punk return to wrestling for the first time in seven years.

For that event, AEW didn’t advertise Punk and sold more than 12,000 tickets in their presale, moving the remaining amount in four minutes for the public onsale.

Attendance for that show ended up being 15,316.

May 9, 2022 Observer Newsletter: WWE Q1 2022 financials, Forbidden Door presale sells out

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

WWE set business records in quarter one, which included a Saudi Arabia show and the Royal Rumble, but did not include the two days of WrestleMania.

The company took in $333,448,000 in revenue and had a $66,041,000 profit. The first quarter last year, with no live events or Saudi Arabia show (which brings in $50 million in revenue alone) did $263,524,000 in revenue and $43,832,000 in profits.

The numbers beat the Wall Street estimates of $325 million in revenue and $50 million in profits.

Adjusted OIBDA was $111.7 million, and the projection for the year is $360 million to $375 million.

There wasn’t a lot of news regarding new deals at the 5/5 investors call, which was mostly Nick Khan talking about the potential for multiple bidders for WWE content when its current deals expire in September 2024.

He called WrestleMania the most viewed event in the history of the company both domestically and globally. It would have been the most-watched PPV event given they are combining two shows, but the individual shows were not watched by anywhere near the number of people who used to watch the television shows in the 80s and 90s. He said the Peacock viewership numbers were up 61 percent from last year, but gave no numbers of what that means. He said it was the second-most watched live event ever on Peacock, behind the Super Bowl, which did about ten million streaming viewers. It should be noted that Peacock had 28 million homes watch its programming in the first quarter and 13 million paying subscribers, numbers way up from last year, so a lot of the gains are far more people with access. Plus they are adding the numbers of two shows, although the two prior years were also two shows. The WWE Network was at about 1.2 million U.S. subscribers so of course viewership should be way up. He claimed the show had 56.1 million viewers in India, a number that has not been explained what it all encompasses past the fact that it was up 29 percent from the 2021 show. He also said that the company has strong momentum coming off the show.

Subscribers can read this week’s issue here.

April 25, 2022 Observer Newsletter: AEW & NJPW announce joint show, Windy City Riot review

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

Tony Khan’s big surprise for this week, announced on the 4/20 Dynamite show, is a new PPV show, called Forbidden Door, a joint show with New Japan Pro Wrestling.

The show was announced for 6/26 at the United Center in Chicago. One would suspect the goal would be the second $1 million gate in company history, after doing so for Double or Nothing on 5/29 in Las Vegas.

The show would be an added PPV show, on a Sunday night. No names nor matches have been announced. Adam Cole and Jay White were the wrestlers who made the announcement.

Unlike the New Japan/ROH show in Madison Square Garden, where really each promotion did its own matches, most of the matches are expected to be AEW vs. NJPW, although that isn’t locked in stone and there could be an AEW vs. AEW or NJPW vs. NJPW match, or tag team matches with wrestlers from both companies.

Subscribers can read this week’s issue here.

Speak Now: AEW x NJPW, full Dynamite show recap

Posted on by Denise Salcedo

Join Denise Salcedo on the April 20th edition of Speak Now Pro Wrestling in which she covers AEW Dynamite! This episode includes a coffin match, CM Punk vs Dustin Rhodes and an announcement from Tony Khan regarding AEW and NJPW partnership! This is a fun and lively show perfect for all fans of AEW! 

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AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door joint PPV set for June 26

Posted on by Ethan Renner

The Forbidden Door is wide open.

A joint AEW-NJPW pay-per-view is set for Sunday, June 26 at the United Center in Chicago.

The announcement of AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door was made during tonight’s AEW Dynamite episode after being hyped for the past week on AEW programming.

AEW president Tony Khan and NJPW president Takami Ohbari appeared together on Dynamite to announce the PPV on Dynamite, but were interrupted by AEW’s Adam Cole and NJPW’s Jay White. Cole and White delivered the details of the event, with Cole adding that he will face Tomohiro Ishii on this week’s AEW Rampage.

No talent or match announcements have been made for Forbidden Door, but Khan told Sports Illustrated that the PPV will feature matches with AEW talent facing off against NJPW talent.

Tickets for the show ill go on sale Friday, May 6 at 11 a.m. Eastern time. The event will air on traditional pay-per-view and on the Bleacher Report app in the United States, and on FITE TV for international customers.

The event is set to take place during what is typically a lull in NJPW’s schedule, between Dominion on June 12 and the G1 Climax tournament which typically takes place later in the summer. The June 26 date means that top NJPW talent like Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Tetsuya Naito will likely be available to work the show.

Okada, Tanahashi and Naito did not work last week’s NJPW event in Chicago. Tanahashi is advertised for NJPW dates in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia next month, while Okada is advertised only for Washington.

AEW and NJPW’s relationship got off to a rocky start under previous NJPW president Harold Meij after The Young Bucks, Hangman Page, and Cody Rhodes announced AEW’s founding in an episode of Being The Elite shot in front of the Tokyo Dome. After Meij’s departure, the relationship between the companies thawed. Numerous NJPW talents including Minoru Suzuki, Tomohiro Ishii, Yuji Nagata, KENTA, Satoshi Kojima, and Rocky Romero have since wrestled on AEW programming.

“We started working closely together last year,” Khan told Sports Illustrated. “The more we’ve collaborated, the better the relationship has become and the more trust we’ve built.