WWE has made a huge deal out of its return to holding events in front of fans, but there's a clear lack of interest in RAW, SmackDown, and the company's non-televised shows.
While ratings for RAW, in particular, have plummeted, they've also remained relatively steady during the pandemic. However, that doesn't mean people are tuning in out of much more than habit or because they're die-hard fans. That's evident from poor ticket sales according to Dave Meltzer.
"They’re behind AEW in ticket sales as far as per show thing," he reveals. "They had a very good first week. Houston for [July] 16th with Edge on his first night back came out very strong. The Fort Worth pay-per-view is almost sold out so they’re gonna have 10,000 people in there so that’s good. The only good one is there’s a Raw in Chicago at the Allstate Arena that’s probably around 6,000-6,300 sold which would be well below what I would expect but I would certainly not call it bad this far in advance. It’s okay."
"Most of the rest of the stuff is not okay," Meltzer adds. "There’s a lot under 2,000 [tickets sold], a lot of shows. Miami, AEW is ahead and Charlotte, AEW is ahead. Charlotte is a big surprise because in those Carolina markets, WWE is [typically] way ahead in interest in those Carolina markets and all the traditional wrestling markets."
"AEW is in the B building and WWE is in the big building and AEW is ahead in ticket sales. In Miami, neither side is doing good but WWE’s ticket sales are not good at all. AEW’s are okay [in Miami]. That’s the barometer on if you’re really hot or cold and [WWE is] cold." Meltzer pointed out that this is particularly bad for WWE because they've been pushing these shows on TV much harder than AEW has, and ticket sales are even said to be "scary bad" in some places.
It's these paying fans who will dictate how WWE creative is handled moving forward, so this hopefully leads to Vince McMahon realising that people are bored of the same old matches, goofy segments with a former MMA fighter pretending to be scared by a doll, and a lack of compelling babyfaces.
It's unlikely COVID can be blamed for this as many sporting events have already started welcoming fans back (the recent UFC show, for example, was a sell-out even without social distancing).