AEW Double or Nothing Surpasses WWE Backlash & Saturday Night’s Main Event in Search Interest

AEW just pulled off a digital win no one saw coming—not even Dave Meltzer.

On the May 29 episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer revealed that AEW Double or Nothing 2025 outperformed both WWE Backlash and Saturday Night’s Main Event in online search interest. While AEW often trails WWE in digital traction, this time was different—and the numbers don’t lie.

“In this last month, Double or Nothing, which was the high point for AEW obviously, actually was ahead of the WWE Backlash show, which shocked me… and it also beat out Saturday Night’s Main Event the night before. Not by a great margin for either one—it was like 11%, 12%—but still.”

That edge might seem small, but Meltzer said it marked AEW’s first win over WWE in this kind of online activity since August 2023, when the company made history with its first Wembley Stadium show.

“I went back, and the last time that there was a month where both companies had a major show in the same month and AEW was ahead was August 2023, which was the first Wembley show—which did beat WWE’s stuff. But that first Wembley show was a gigantic, gigantic show.”

Still, Meltzer was quick to clarify that this doesn’t mean AEW is catching WWE overall—but the interest around Double or Nothing was undeniable.

“I don’t want to say the gap’s closing because that’s probably not a fair thing to say at all, but AEW had a lot of interest over the weekend… There were three shows, including the NXT show, and AEW’s show did have the most interest of the three, which surprised me.”

In a stacked weekend that featured Double or Nothing, WWE Backlash, and an NXT event, AEW stole the online spotlight—and for a promotion constantly fighting for attention against WWE’s marketing machine, that’s no small feat.

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