During yesterday's edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer claimed that around 1500 fans left the arena during Alexa Bliss' segment with Charlotte Flair. If you missed it, that featured a confrontation between the two women, with The Queen ultimately standing tall after taking Alexa - and her doll - out. Honestly, it wasn't great.
Fans love Bliss, but her Fiend-lite gimmick really isn't working in front of live crowds and neither are the talking dolls, magic powers (which have been dialled down a little) or promos like this one.
As you can see below, the former RAW Women's Champion didn't appreciate Meltzer's comments and was quick to dismiss them. However, Bryan Alvarez has now confirmed with sources from within WWE that it was actually around 700 fans who decided this segment wasn't for them.
"Last night during the show, shortly after the Alexa Bliss/Charlotte segment, somebody in WWE [and] in the building...texted all of us actually and they said that 700 people had walked out. 700," he explained.
"I know that she’s mad. I’d probably be mad too if I did some segment and people walked out but it appears to be a factual statement that a number of people walked out during that segment. I don’t know what the real number was, I wasn’t there but there were people that walked out during that segment. Is it the end of the world? No," Alvarez continued. "Do you know what else I heard from that person? That they sold a lot of merch which would probably mean dolls and shirts and whatever. Alexa is gonna get her merch paycheck and hopefully, that will make her feel better but there’s good and bad with this story."
Bliss and Flair will clash at Extreme Rules with the title on the line, but it will be interesting seeing whether WWE pays any attention to this and perhaps decide there are better ways to use Bliss on TV.
Here is Bliss’ tweet about Meltzer’s initial report: