AJ Styles isn’t ready to call WWE’s two-night SummerSlam experiment a disaster—but he’s not convinced it qualifies as a major success either.
During his latest podcast, Styles was presented with ticket figures showing roughly 22,000 seats distributed for each night of SummerSlam. The event is being held inside a Minnesota stadium with a much larger potential capacity, leaving tens of thousands of seats still available with only two weeks remaining.
Styles acknowledged that drawing more than 20,000 fans on consecutive nights is nothing to dismiss. However, he questioned whether WWE is getting what it wanted from moving SummerSlam into a stadium and stretching the event across two nights.
“It doesn’t sound like they’re doing very well, but it is 20,000 people. That is a lot as well. To have a two-day event where 20,000 people are coming to that—but again, it is not a sellout.”
“Is this being successful? I don’t know. I’m sure they’re going to make money on this regardless, or they wouldn’t be doing it. Or is it something they’re trying out and going, ‘Okay, we can run an arena,’ but arenas usually only hold about 12,000 or 14,000 people?”
Styles pointed out that WWE is still selling more tickets than it could for a standard arena event. The real question, in his eyes, is whether the company cares more about filling the building or maximizing the amount of money it can generate across both nights.
“They’re still able to fit more people in the stadium, so they are doing better than an arena show. But what do you want to get out of it? Is it one of those things where perception is reality and we want that to be the case here, or is it all about—which I know the answer to this—the money?”
“Having a two-day event where it’s not sold out, but there are 20,000 people there each day, they’ll probably pick up at least another 5,000 to 10,000. That’s my guess.”
When asked what could be holding SummerSlam back, Styles immediately brought up WWE’s ticket prices. He said the company has not exactly built a reputation for offering cheap seats, even when fans are sitting near the top of the stadium.
“I don’t know how much the tickets are, but they haven’t been known to be cheap. Even the nosebleeds are a little expensive, so I think that might have something to do with it. I could be wrong.”
Styles believes WWE should slash the price of the cheapest seats instead of allowing large sections of the stadium to remain empty.
“I would think that big shows like this would definitely have tiers for where you’re going to sit and how much they are. But when you get to the nosebleeds, let’s make them freaking cheap—dirt cheap. Sell a bunch of those. Why not? Let’s sell all these seats we can.”
Styles also questioned whether WWE is using SummerSlam to test how fans respond to another two-night premium live event. WrestleMania has worked across two nights, but Styles isn’t convinced every major WWE event needs the same treatment.
“Maybe that’s something that happens as we get closer. Who knows? It’s only two weeks away. Maybe this is a run to see how it goes. It’s not WrestleMania, so let’s see if SummerSlam is successful.”
“If SummerSlam is successful, then that means we make the other two big pay-per-views two-day events, right? I don’t know how this is going to work out. I don’t know if it’s just a trial run or something like that.”
Styles made his own preference clear. He likes major wrestling events being completed in one night, even if WWE has already proven that WrestleMania can work as a full weekend.
“I’m a big fan of one-day kind of stuff. But then again, WrestleMania seems to do okay. SummerSlam being two days—we’re going to find out.”
SummerSlam will still bring tens of thousands of fans into the stadium over two nights, but empty seats could become a major part of the conversation if WWE cannot create a late surge. The event may ultimately make plenty of money, but Styles believes that does not automatically settle the debate over whether the two-night gamble worked.
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Do you think WWE should keep Summer Slam as a two-night event, or should the company go back to one stacked night? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.
