WWE Currently Benefiting From Increased Interest

During the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed the increasing interest in WWE of late, something that can't be said of AEW right now:

“The one thing that was really notable to me is the WWE stuff was generally pretty decent. It was up a little bit, most of the shows. There’s a big one in Houston, very big advance for a TV taping. The (Madison Square) Garden’s up. Most of the shows are up.

“AEW, most of them are down a little bit, most of the recent ones. The debuts obviously have been huge – the Detroit debut was very strong, obviously Los Angeles debut couldn’t have been better. But the cities that they’re going back to, they are down. The AEW stuff to me is kinda understandable when most of the top guys are out of action right now. There’s so many injuries, so that’s gonna hurt a little bit.

“But WWE being up was interesting to me. Almost across the board, whatever they are doing… another interesting thing about that is they’re up (and) one of their biggest drawing cards Roman Reigns is not even on these shows other than Nashville (SummerSlam), which is doing pretty well.

“Whatever it is, there’s definitely an upswing in interest in the product, for whatever reason. So that was kind of an interesting thing to see.

“The ratings of WWE have been up… WWE is on an upswing right now, so they’re doing something right, whatever it is.

“Also at the Vegas show on Saturday (Money in the Bank), they did monster merchandise numbers in Vegas. They had a hot crowd as well, but they did monster merchandise numbers. It was blowing people away. It was like double per head what they did last year at SummerSlam in the same market, which is incredible because when you have those big shows like SummerSlam or WrestleMania, the merchandise sales are way up from a usual show, and this was just a regular pay-per-view compared to a SummerSlam.

“So a lot of good news for WWE on the popularity front right now, so they are satisfying and growing their fanbase right now.”