Concern Over AEW Reaching ‘WCW 2000’ Levels of Live Show Attendance

AEW made its debut back in 2019 with all the momentum in the world. It is a fact that the company was truly at its peak after All Out 2021 when many felt they were ready to take over the pro wrestling world. Those days seem to be long gone now as AEW is struggling to sell tickets for their shows and many feel now that AEW is slowly teaching WCW 2000 levels in terms of live show attendance.

For a long time now, AEW has been struggling to sell tickets for its weekly shows, which has become a cause of concern for many. In fact, a previous week’s episode of AEW Collision had shockingly low attendance throughout the night.

The trend of AEW failing to sell tickets for venues has been the case for the past year and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer expressed concern about AEW’s live attendance, comparing it to WCW 2000 levels. Attendance figures below 2,000 for Dynamite are deemed “really bad,” and Meltzer notes declining numbers in cities upon return visits.

“(AEW attendance) is not good. One of the things is like, there were a lot of weak advances in the last quarter, but they had a lot of the shows where they got late buys, whether it was bringing in Okada or Mistico, or having an MJF or Kenny Omega match, or just good local promotion, or lowering ticket prices, things like that. “And so, I kind of got lulled into this sense of, ‘okay the advances suck, but it’s not that bad’. And it really wasn’t that bad the last quarter, Well, now, it’s that bad. And it looks worse.”

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”Wednesday’s show, they’re under 2,000. To me, under 4,000 for Dynamite is where it gets to be below so-so. 4,000 to me is fine for AEW. Under 4,000 not so great. Under 3,000, pretty bad. Under 2,000 is really bad. Especially when you’re coming to a city once a year. They’ve got Tulsa coming up, they’ve never been to Tulsa, they’re under 2,000 there as well. And then the last week, St Louis on Saturday, when I saw that number… St Louis is a historically great wrestling city, it’s not like they come there often, and to do under 3,000 on a Saturday night, it’s really not good at all.”

Meltzer highlighted the importance of product excitement and suggested the need for improvements to avoid a scenario akin to WCW’s decline in 2000. Meltzer acknowledges the recent addition of Kosha Irby to address these issues but emphasizes the critical role of overall product appeal in driving attendance.

‘‘Another problem that they have is that every time they go back to a market, in more cases than not, the attendance goes down. There’s always exceptions to every rule, but in more cases than not they go down. And it’s like, okay, when you’re at 4,000 and you’re going down, not so great. When you’re at 2,800 and you’re going down in a major city, where are you headed?”

“You’re getting now to WCW 2000. And people hate when I use that term, but they’re getting there. And that’s a scary place to be. There’s a lot of things that they could do, but they haven’t. I know that Kosha Irby’s in, and this is actually his job, his job is going to be to get this stuff up. And it’s way too early to put any blame on him, he just got there.”

“Even if you’re the greatest promoter in the world, people are gonna buy more or less based on the product and the excitement of the product. WCW had Zane Bressloff in 2000 and they couldn’t sell tickets because nobody wanted to buy tickets to the product, and with AEW, the number of people who wanna buy tickets to the product is… they’ll buy the pay-per-views, they’ll watch Wednesday night TV, but they’re not going in any great numbers to the shows.”

There’s a shared sentiment that AEW should avoid booking venues larger than necessary, given the unflattering photos depicting lower attendance. Concerns about the company’s current state are expressed, with a hope for recovery to the initial success under Tony Khan. The focus is on the need for strategic venue selection to enhance AEW’s overall presentation.

What do you think of this story concerning AEW’s live attendance? What can AEW do to improve their product? Let us know in the comments section below!