CM Punk assisted WWE in selling nearly 2,000 tickets for tonight’s WWE RAW despite the fact that he is not even advertised for the show. Since his return to the company last week, Punk has been a top social media trend, a strong merchandise seller, and has helped boost RAW’s ratings.
Punk is not advertised for tonight’s RAW, but he is advertised for this Friday’s SmackDown. WWE has loaded up tonight’s RAW.
WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins will face Jey Uso, Drew McIntyre will face Sami Zayn, Nia Jax will face Shayna Baszler, Cody Rhodes will address Shinsuke Nakamura, DIY (Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano) will face Imperium (Giovanni Vince & Ludwig Kaiser) in a Two-Out-Of-Three Falls match, and more.
Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE sold 1,700 tickets in a week because fans believe Punk will be at RAW, even though he is not expected to be there. According to WrestleTix, RAW has sold 6,599 tickets.
“There’s going to be a lot of upset people because they sold almost 1700 tickets in the last week for Albany for Raw, and that’s for Punk,” Meltzer said before Bryan Alvarez guessed Punk would be announced for the show today.
Meltzer continued, “They never advertised him. The people just bought the tickets, assuming he would be there. Tickets moved. That’s a lot of tickets to move in a week, and that’s the reason they moved.”
It should be noted that there have been no reports of Punk attending RAW or being seen in the city. He could be added at the last minute, but one would think WWE would want to get the word out as soon as possible, as they did for his SmackDown appearance, in order to sell more tickets.
