New reporting has revealed what WWE brought in for their record-breaking ticket revenue for 2025’s WrestleMania 41.
The article from Wrestlenomics/Post Wrestling, using data from live event trade publication Pollstar, showed that last year’s two-night event at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas generated a total of $66,074,558 for WWE.
While there wasn’t a breakdown of each night, Brandon Thurston surmised that even with a 50/50 split, $33 million per night would surpass any wrestling show in history.
Last August, Thurston reported that the Las Vegas Stadium Authority provided documentation showing Saturday’s attendance at 58,538 and Sunday’s at 60,103 for a combined 118,641, more than what Pollstar reported (113,412) which Thurston wrote suggests “the stadium authority’s attendance included more than just tickets sold” in their tally.
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Sunday News Update
Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer Radio talking the weekend shows, previewing the week, and lots of other news. You can send questions to the show to [email protected]
Rampage will be bounced around the schedule in May due to TNT’s coverage of the NBA and NHL playoffs. Because it depends on who is playing when, there is no set time past this coming Friday is scheduled at the regular 10 p.m. time. May 6 right now is scheduled for 6 p.m. Eastern and 3 p.m. Pacific but that could change. That’s going to happen every year at this time.
An update from yesterday’s show regarding tickets for Nashville for SummerSlam on 7/30 at Nissan Stadium. Tickets went on sale to the public on Friday. They had opened up 23,000 tickets in the pre-sale. Now they have opened up 35,000 and about 19,000 are out (paid and some comps). I would call that very good considering it’s only four weeks after a stadium show in Las Vegas that’s also doing well.
I was discussing this morning on Sunday Night’s Main Event regarding Chicago. So they had a PPV show from New Japan last weekend. WWE is running a PPV at the Allstate Arena on June 5. AEW is running the New Japan vs. AEW show at the United Center on June 26. While not confirmed, Chicago also has the AEW tradition of Labor Day at the NOW Arena for Labor Day. That’s a lot for one market. The WWE show isn’t sold out, but should be sold out or close to it. The United Center tickets go on sale on 5/6 and this will be very interesting only because the way New Japan works with Dominion in June and title matches there. It’s an experiment both live and PPV.
For Google searches this week, nothing wrestling or MMA related cracked the top 20 any day this past week, which means nothing from yesterday’s UFC show and nothing from the two Bellator shows. The only stuff boxing related was Tyson Fury had 1 million searches for his win over Dillan Whyte at Wembley Stadium, and on Thursday, Mike Tyson had one million searches regarding the obnoxious guy harassing him on the plane who he allegedly hit.
Regarding Fury, after his win he spoke about potential matches with Drew McIntyre and Francis Ngannou. He specifically talked about SummerSlam or the Cardiff, Wales show on 9/3. As noted many times, Fury vs. McIntyre was set before COVID hit and then it just didn’t make sense to do it. Regarding Ngannou, he targeted early 2013 when the belief is Ngannou will be out of his UFC contract. Fury said they could do it boxing style, in a cage, with boxing gloves or MMA gloves. The key is the rules are going to be boxing rules and not MMA rules, and Fury is the best heavyweight boxer of this era and Ngannou has never competed at a high level in boxing even though he can punch very hard. Fury was talking retirement after the fight, but boxers talk that all the time.
Two of the biggest wrestling legends in history were born on this day. Lou Thesz was born on this day in 1916 and Blue Demon was born on this day in 1922, so today would have been his 100th birthday. Thesz was one of the most notable world champions in history. Demon was a movie star and wrestler, a household name to this day in Mexico and the second biggest star behind El Santo in the history of Lucha Libre.
Today is also the 30th anniversary of the first pro wrestling show ever held at the Tokyo Dome, promoted by New Japan Pro Wrestling. The story behind it was something as it was the first time Russian amateur athletes, even before the NHL, went into a professional sport. Hiroshi Hase and Masa Saito trained them. The uranage (rock bottom) move came from that show as Shota Chochoshvili, an Olympic medalist in judo, used the move to beat Antonio Inoki in a no ropes main event. The show was also the debut of Keiichi Yamada using the Jushin Liger character. Another debut on that show was Russian amateur Victor Zangiev, who became the person the famed street fighter video game character Zangief was named for.
Liz Carmouche, best known as the opponent of Ronda Rousey in the first UFC women’s fight ever in 2013, won her first MMA world title on Friday night taking the Bellator title from Juliana Velasquez. Velasquez was clearly winning going into round four, when Carmouche took her down and threw elbows to the forehead on the ground with Velasquez trapped in the crucifix position before ref Mike Beltran stopped the fight. I watched it and thought it was a fair stoppage, and really at the exact point I felt it should be stopped, Beltran stopped it. However John McCarthy (who i greatly respect) doing commentary was very negative thinking it was stopped early and that led to it being controversial. Scott Coker last night talked about running it back in a rematch.
Two weekend bouts we’ve heard raves about were Moose vs. Josh Alexander at last night’s Impact show in Poughkeepsie, NY and the Will Ospreay vs. Blake Christian match in South Bend, IN. Impact had done a strong job in building that match in recent weeks and really it’s the culmination of a push dating back a year.
Raw will have a 20th anniversary celebration of Randy Orton’s 2002 debut on the main roster. Also announced is Becky Lynch’s first appearance on Raw since WrestleMania and Bianca Belair vs, Sonya Deville for the women’s title in Belair’s home city of Knoxville. The new thing they are doing these days is bringing in wrestlers from the other brand for a dark match, so New Day vs. Sheamus & Ridge Holland is advertised as the main event.
Bellator results from last night in Honolulu:
Yancy Medeiros b Emmanuel Sanchez via decision 29-28, 30-27, 30-27
Patchy Mix b Kyoji Horiguchi 48-47, 48-47, 48-47 in an upset in the bantamweight Grand Prix first round
Justine Kish b Ilima-Lei Macfarlane on scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28. Macfarlane’s reaction was like watching 1983 Von Erichs at the Sportatorium in Dallas. But she lost
Raufeon Stots b Juan Archuleta to win the interim bantamweight title via knockout at :16 of round three in the Grand Prix first round
Cris Cyborg b Arlene Blencowe 49-45, 49-45 49-45 to retain the women’s featherweight title. Blencowe got a lot of raves for hanging in there five rounds.
Jake Lee won the A block of the Champion Carnival tournament with a win today at Korakuen Hall over T-Hawk. The B block has Yuma Aoyagi, Kento Miyahara, Suwama and Takuya Nomura all mathematically alive. Aoyagi vs. Miyahara takes place e 4/29 in Nagoya and the winner would face Lee in the finals. In the event of a draw, or a no contest, that’s where Suwama or Nomura have a chance.
WWE
Nothing major on the house shows but the Raw main event is Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch vs. Liv Morgan on last night’s show and the Smackdown main event was Roman Reigns over Drew McIntyre for the Universal title. which, based on an angle shot for next week’s Smackdown, looks to be the WrestleMania Backlash main event for 5/8 in Providence, RI.
AEW
The 5/11 show at the UBS Arena in Long Island, which will include first round matches in The Owen Hart tournament, has passed 6,200 tickets out. At last look it was slightly ahead of WWE’s Nassau Coliseum show, but it will likely end up short of WWE’s last Barclays Center and MSG show.
Reports from those live were that the Eddie Kingston vs Daniel Garcia match on Friday’s Rampage show was heavily edited. You could see the show was basically forcing as much in the hour because segments didn’t have time to breathe to give you as much match time as possible. Kingston vs. Garcia was 22:00 live but about nine minutes less on television (thanks to Jack Murphy)
Other Notes
Jon Moxley will be appearing for Pro Wrestling Revolver on 6/11 at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Dayton, OH at the Calumet Center.
Will Ospreay vs. Davey Richards and Jeff Cobb vs. Jonah have been announced for the debut of Warrior Wrestling on 5/28 in St. Louis. Results from last night in South Bend: Sam Adonis b Aramis to keep the Lucha Libre title, Karl Fredericks b Clark Connors, Storm Grayson b Alex Zayne with help from Frank the Clown, Swerve Strickland b Adam Brooks, Dante Martin & Dante Leon b Brian Cage & KC Navarro, Athena (Ember Moon) won three-way over Shazza McKenzie and Skye Blue to win the vacant Warrior women’s title (Thunder Rosa vacated the title after winning the AEW title), Ospreay b Blake Christian to keep the Warrior title.
The annual Beat the Street amateur wrestling show takes place on 6/8 at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden. Two of the country’s biggest amateur stars of the past decade, gold medalists Helen Maroulis and Jordan Burroughs will be wresting on the show. Maroulis is 6-0 in Beat the Street shows competing between 2012 and 2018
Sebastian Przybysz (10-2) retained the KSW bantamweight title beating Wertlieson Martins (16-5) via chke at 2:07 of round five.
CWE announced shows on 5/13 in Winnipeg and 5/14 in Morden, Manitoba featuring Big Vito, competing in CWE for the first time in 12 years.
Big E cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on the 9/13 Raw to win the WWE championship from Bobby Lashley, signifying his switching brands and reuniting The New Day.
Born Ettore Ewen, the 35-year-old Tampa product was a state heavyweight champion wrestler at Wharton High School and football player, who went to the University of Iowa, and after college, became a powerlifter.
A mutual friend contacted Jim Ross, and he was given a WWE tryout in 2009 and WWE signed him to a deal at that time. He started as Big E Langston in Florida Championship Wrestling, which was shortened to Big E. He was popular due to his personality and those in developmental thought he could be a groundbreaking performer with his leaping ability and agility and power combination.
In 2012, he was brought up to the main roster, and on November 18, 2013, won the IC title from Curtis Axel. But his career took off in 2014 as part of the New Day tag team. The idea started out silly but ended up being tweaked by the three guys in it and the group held the Raw tag team titles twice and Smackdown version of the titles six times.
ORDERING INFO: Order the print Wrestling Observer right now and get it delivered via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to [email protected] or by going to www.paypal.com directing funds to [email protected].
Rates in the United States are $14.50 for 4 issues, $35.50 for 12, $70 for 24, $116 for 40 and $149.50 for 52.
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FRIDAY NEWS UPDATE
Garrett Gonzalez and I will be back for Wrestling Observer Radio and it’s not like we don’t have some major topics with Dark Side of the Ring and the fallout on Ric Flair and Tommy Dreamer (and not Brock Lesnar), what this week’s ratings really mean past who won and lost and the pattern, plus this is a huge weekend of major event including the start of G-1.
Ariel Helwani reported earlier this week on a new promotion called the World Fight League that is scheduled to launch in 2023. He said the promotion will be run by several former and current pro athletes from the NFL, NBA and MMA including former world champions, five former MMA promoters, as well as actors and recording artists. The idea is a team sport with four conferences, one in North America, South America, Africa and Europe with eight to 24 teams in each conference and each team will have 24 fighters, three in each weight class. There will be a union and fighters will get health insurance, pension, a union and fighters will be paid 50 percent of revenue.
A few on sale numbers that indicate “Houston, we have a problem.” The next New York battle is AEW vs. WWE at the UBS Arena. WWE tickets were put on sale to the public today and are less than 1,000 for Raw on 11/29. AEW was bout 5,500 first day for its 12/9 Dynamite. To say this is shocking is an understatement.
AEW’s first day ticket sales for the Dynamite on 11/24 at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago at last look was over 5,800. The place sells out at about 7,000 for the pro wrestling set up so it’s pretty much a lock that the show will sell out.
Smackdown tonight from Knoxville,TN has Rick Boogs vs. Robert Roode, a homecoming celebration for Bianca Belair and Seth Rollins will talk about the Edge angle.
AEW Rampage taped from Wednesday night in Newark, NJ:
Penta & Fenix vs. Butcher & Blade for tag titles (told this was really good)
Anna Jay vs. The Bunny
Miro vs. Fuego del Sol TNT title vs. Fuego’s car
There is also a Ruby Soho/Britt Baker angle and interviews with Bryan Danielson and Kenny Omega for both matches on Wednesday from New York.
UFC has a full ESPN+ show tomorrow starting at 4 p.m. Eastern:
Emily Whitmire (125) vs. Hannah Goldy (125)
Gustavo Lopez (135) vs. Heilli Alateng (136)
Impa Kasanganay (170.5) vs. Carlston Harris (170)
Erin Blanchfield (125) vs. Sarah Alper (126)
Montel Jackson (136) vs. JP Buys (136)
Brandon Jenkins (155.5) vs. Rong Zhu (158) – Zhu missed weight and will forfeit 20 percent of his purse
Pannie Kianzad (136) vs. Raquel Pennington (135.5)
Mike Rodriguez (202) vs.; Tafon Nchukwi (204.5)
Nate Maness (135) vs. Tony Gravely (135.5)
Joaquin Buckley (184.5) vs. Antonio Aroyo (186)
Arman Tsarukhyan (155.5) vs. Christos Giagos (155.5)
Ariane Lipski (126) vs. Mandy Bohm (125.5)
Ion Cutelaba (205) vs. Devin Clark (206)
Anthony Smith (205.5) vs. Ryan Spann (206)
The Nikolas Motta vs. Cameron VanKamp fight was pulled from the show due to an injury to one of the competitors.
Bellator runs the SAP Center in San Jose tomorrow night at 10 p.m. Eastern on Showtime:
Christian Edwards (204.3) vs. Ben Parrish (205.6)
Georgi Karakhanyan (155.6) vs. Saul Rogers (155.7)
Alejandra Lara (125.2) vs. DeAnna Bennett (129.2) – missed weight by 3.6 pounds and will be fined
Neiman Gracie (170.6) vs. Mark Lemminger (169.9)
Phil Davis (206) vs. Yoel Romero (205.4)
Last night’s Dark Side of the Ring did 153,000 viewers and an 0.07 in 18-49. That was the lowest number in show history, largely because of going head-to-head with the NFL game (New York Giants vs. Washington) which was the most watched Thursday game on NFL Network in three years. The game did 7,327,000 viewers and 2.38 in 18-49 on television and another 532,000 streaming.
G-1 starts at 4 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning from the Osaka Edion Arena:
Sho vs. Ryohei Oiwa (non-tournament)
Kota Ibushi vs. Yujiro Takahashi
Toru Yano vs. KENTA
Tetsuya Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Shingo Takagi
There is a second show at 1 a.m.Eastern tomorrow night with Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada as the main event:
Sho vs. Kosei Fujita
Yoshi-Hashi vs. Evil
Jeff Cobb vs Chase Owens
Tama Tonga vs Sanada
Hirooki Goto vs. Taichi
Tanahashi vs. Okada
CMLL has its El Homenaje a Dos Leyendas show tonight at Arena Mexico, honoring both Sangre Chicana and Salvador Lutteroth. The two main events are Felino vs. Cavernario in a hair vs. hair match stemming from their early 2020 feud that never had a chance to be resolved, plus Volador Jr. vs. Gran Guerrero in the finals for the Copa Independencia.
Brian Cage is out with knee issues coming from recent stem cell therapy and will be out of the Battleground Championship Wrestling show in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena tomorrow night. Bobby Fish will replace him in the first big match of Buddy Matthews, the former Buddy Murphy, since leaving WWE.
Impact Victory Road will be taped tonight for airing tomorrow on FITE and Impact +:
Tenille Dashwood vs. Taylor Wilde
Matt Cardona vs. Rohit Raju no DQ
Chris Bey & Hikuleo vs. Juice Robinson & David Finlay
Sami Callihan & Eddie Edwards vs. Moose & W. Morrisey
Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows vs. Rich Swann & Willie Mack for tag titles
Havok & Rosemary vs. Tasha Steelz & Savannah Evans for Knockouts tag titles
Josh Alexander vs. Chris Sabin for X title
Christian Cage vs Austin Austin for Impact title
Game Changer Wrestling tonight from Los Angles on FITE:
Minoru Suzuki vs. Jonathan Gresham
Tony Deppen vs. Ron Funches
Jacob Fatu vs. Chris Dickinson
Effy vs. 2 Cold Scorpio
Atticus Cogar vs. Ninja Mack
Alex Zayne vs. Jordan Oliver
Second Gear Crew vs; Nick Wayne & Riley & Starboy Charly
Stand Alone Pro Wrestling on 10/9 in Lacey Township, NJ at the High School.
Maryland Championship Wrestling tonight at the MCW ARena at the Joppa Market Place in Joppa, MD with Matt Hardy, Mojo Rawley, Tammy Sytch, Ray Lyn, Scott Norton and others at the meet and greet before the show.
Combate Globo tonight on Paramount + at 11 p.m. Eastern is headlined by Martin Bravo (11-3) vs Andrew Whitney (16-9).
WAR Wrestling on 10/9 in Lima, OH at the Empowered Sports Center.
Paradigm Pro Wrestling on 10/15 in Sellersburg, IN with both UWFI rules matches and hardcore matches. Myron Reed vs Suge D and Calvin Tankman vs. Shane Taylor are the top matches. Davey Richards will be on bot shows. Both shows are on IWTV and take place at American Legion Post 204.
Legacy Fighting on 10/22 from Vail, CO at the Dobson Arena has Renato Valente (8-4) vs. Josh Fremd (7-2) in the middleweight main event for a live show at 10 p.m. Eastern on UFC Fight Pass.
559 Fights tomorrow night in Visalia, CA at the Valley Strong baseball stadium headlined by Sal Bruno (3-2-2) vs. Marvin Garcia (3-0) as the main event of a 17-fight show.
Matt Cardona returns to AIW on 10/2 in Akron, OH at the Tadmor Shrine.
The Bollywood Boys, formerly the Singh Brothers in WWE, have been added to the 9/25 Defy Wrestling show in Seattle at Washington, Hall, facing Cody Chhun & Nick Wayne (the son of Buddy Wayne) on a show that includes Eddie Kingston, Brody King and Christopher Daniels. They also run 9/9 in Portland, OR at the Kliever Armory with Kingston and King, and 10/14 in Los Angeles at the Highland Park Lodge Room with Kingston, Daniels, Daniel Garcia and Calvin Tankman.
NWA By Any Means Necessary on 10/24 in Oak Grove, KY at th Valor Hall Event live on FITE TV with Jax Dane vs. Crimson in cage match plus NWA champion Trevor Murdoch, Kamille, Nick Aldis, Tim Storm, Thom Latimer, The Pope and more.
Nicole Savoy vs. Holidead has been added to MLW’s 10/2 show at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.
NFC tomorrow in Atlanta for ten MMA and Muay Thai Fights at The District.
