AEW’s Double Or Nothing pay-per-view held on the 30th of May is now reported to have been the second most successful event in the company’s history.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reported in his newsletter that the numbers pointed to the event being only behind Revolution held in March of this year.
Meltzer says the event looks to have “significantly beaten” the 120,000 pay-per-view buys that the show did in 2020. Also, FITE TV buys were reported to be in line with last year’s event, those buys cover the reach of the show outside of the US. Meltzer speculates that the number of buys from FITE TV might be a bit flatter than hoped because the event was available on pay-per-view in the UK for the first time since AEW’s UK home, ITV, folded their own box office channel.
As for streams on B/R Live in the US, they showed a 12% increase from last year on the day after the show. Meltzer then notes that late buys could bump that number up closer to 20%. However, the staggering number comes when Meltzer mentions domestic pay-per-view buys in the US which he reports were up an incredible 98% on last year’s Double Or Nothing. While that seems an incredible number it is still down 9% in total from the number of buys for Revolution which was headlined by the infamous Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match for the AEW Championship between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega.
Meltzer says his best estimate at this point would see the pay-per-view buy number in the US hovering somewhere between 135,000 and 150,000 buys.
This year’s Double Or Nothing was held in front of a packed Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida as restrictions begin to ease following the global pandemic. In the main event, Chris Jericho’s Inner Circle got their revenge on The Pinnacle in Stadium Stampede. Sammy Guevara got sweet revenge on MJF’s group as he picked up the pinfall on The Pinnacle’s ‘Chairman’ Shawn Spears. Kenny Omega also defended his AEW Title against Orange Cassidy and Pac – this was the first time the AEW Title had been defended in a three-way match. The Young Bucks clung onto their AEW Tag Team Title as they held off the challenge of Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston.
AEW announcer Jim Ross has recently explained why The Young Bucks reminded him of WWE Hall Of Famer Shawn Michaels in that bout.