WWE Hall of Famer AJ Styles discussed various topics on his Phenomenally Retro podcast, including the reported slow pace of ticket sales for WWE SummerSlam scheduled for early next month.
Styles said, “Well, it doesn’t sound like they’re doing very well. But it is 20,000 people. That is a lot as well. That’s a lot. And to have a two-day event where you know, 20,000 people are coming to that — but again, it is not a sellout. So, is this being successful? I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure they’re going to make money on this regardless, or they wouldn’t be doing it. Or is it something that they’re trying out and go, ‘Okay, we can run an arena, but the fact that the arenas usually only go for about what, 12,000, 14,000, something around there.’ So, they’re still able to fit more people in the stadium.”
On WWE’s reason for running the show there:
“So, they are doing better than an arena show, but it’s — 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 and having a two-day event where it’s not sold out. But there are 20,000 people there each day, and they’ll probably pick up at least another 5,000 to 10,000. That’s my guess.”
On the reason for the lower ticket sales:
“Well, I don’t know how much the tickets are, but they haven’t been known to be cheap. It’s not one of those things where even the nosebleeds are a little expensive. So, I think that might have something to do with it, I could be wrong. I would think that big shows like this would definitely have your tiers of where you’re going to sit and how much they are. But I would say man, when you get the nosebleeds, let’s make them freaking cheap, dirt cheap. Sell a bunch of those. And why not? Let’s sell all these seats we can. And maybe that’s something as we get closer that’ll happen. Who knows? I mean, it’s only two weeks away. I mean, I don’t know, man. I don’t know. Maybe this is a run to see how — you know, it’s not WrestleMania. So, let’s see how SummerSlam is going to [do]. If SummerSlam’s successful, then that means we make the other two big PPVs to two-day events. So, 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. I’m a big fan of one-day kind of stuff, but then again WrestleMania seems to do okay. And SummerSlam being two days, we’re going to find out.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
