AEW's Double or Nothing pay-per-view over the weekend was a hit-and-miss for wrestling fans. While some of the matches were exciting, many criticized the Unsanctioned Match between Chris Jericho and Adam Cole, along with the decision not to have the Four Pillars main event for the AEW World Championship. There was also criticism about how quiet the crowd was. That silence, it turned out, came from the rows of empty seats on the hard camera side that viewers at home couldn't see. Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer was among those pointing it out during the show on Twitter, when he tweeted a photo of Orange Cassidy after he'd just the won the battle royal to reclaim his International Championship. Behind a victorious Cassidy were almost nothing but empty seats. Alvarez couldn't help but make a backhanded compliment with his tweet, saying, "Orange Cassidy won the battle royal last eliminating Swerve, match was incredible live."
WWE's own Pat McAfee noticed as well and even commented on the empty seats at Double or Nothing during The Pat McAfee Show. "Anytime you get a shot away from hard cam, you know what I mean, you can really see a lot of things. AEW found out this weekend or whatever at one of their events, it's like three quarters of an arena completely empty. They don't want that photo out anywhere." (h/t Wrestling Inc.) Who know what WWE thought of one of their own commenting on AEW, but as we all know by now, McAfee is going to say whatever he wants whenever he wants.
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AEW Has An Attendance Issue Tony Khan Will Need To Figure Out
A few weeks ago, AEW President Khan announced on Dynamite the badly kept secret that a new weekly show, Collision, will be starting in June. It's something badly needed for AEW's bloated roster, but the story coming out of the announcement has been how bad ticket sales are for the first set of scheduled shows.
This is a problem AEW has encountered a lot lately. Sure, there have been great successes, with over 65,000 buying tickets so far for All In at Wembley Stadium in London, but Dynamite has been suffering from decreasing attendance and ratings. When AEW began in 2019, they were the fun shiny new object for wrestling fans to go crazy over. Now, four years later, the honeymoon is over and AEW is experiencing the growing pains of keeping a promotion thriving week after week. Somehow, whether it be with more compelling storylines or something else, Tony Khan needs to find a way to stop the bleeding and get AEW back on track. When people are making fun of the attendance at one of your biggest shows of the year, changes need to be made, and fast.
