WWE’s live event business has been thriving in recent years, as has the company’s popularity, as evidenced by increased show attendance and television ratings for all three shows.
WWE’s live event on Sunday night in Fresno, CA, featuring Cody Rhodes vs. Shinsuke Nakamura in a street fight, was a huge success for the company.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer stated that the WWE live event drew the largest crowd of any live event aside from live events at Madison Square Garden, which is always packed and treated as a special event due to WWE’s history at the venue over the years.
Meltzer said, “They did almost 10,000 people, and that was the biggest house show crowd for any WWE show aside from Madison Square Garden, which, I’m not going to say doesn’t count, but it’s completely different. But it was the biggest house show crowd that they’ve done in the United States since August of 2021, which was right after the pandemic. They did like 10,000 people for a show in Detroit. And it’s like Fresno is not exactly Detroit, and it’s certainly not Madison Square Garden. Fresno has always been a good wrestling city overall, but not like a great wrestling city, but always a good one per capita. It usually does better than most cities of its size. But, 10,000 people for a house show, and it was just a normal house show. It was nothing.”
Meltzer added, “They did 7500 and Oakland, on better than 7500 and Oakland on Saturday night as well, which I would have gone if it wasn’t for the UFC. That’s a great crowd for Oakland. It’s a great crowd for our show. So WWE is on fire. They’re on fire. They are so popular they sold out tonight in Anaheim [for Raw].”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
