As you may have heard CM Punk made his long-awaited return to AEW on Saturday, June 17th. He made his comeback at the promotion’s brand new show Collision which took place in his hometown of Chicago at the Wintrust Arena.
His first appearance in over nine months caused quite a buzz across the wrestling world as he took to the mic and in typical Punk fashion, did not hold back. After hurling several insults at the Elite, he also stated that he still considered himself as the AEW World Champion insinuating that he could potentially appear on both Collision and Dynamite.
Has the return of CM Punk to AEW caused a surge in ticket sales?
Prior to the official announcement of Punk’s return, it was reported that ticket sales for the new Saturday show were struggling. Now according to Dave Meltzer Punk’s comeback has boosted ticket sales across both shows.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer went into the weeds as to why there has been a surge in sales when discussing further details.
Uptick in ticket sales, though in a lot of markets since Saturday. The Collision shows both shows – Collision and Dynamite. It sometimes only takes, you know, a big angle and people think there’s a big angle. The problem is there may not be a big angle, but I think people think that there is because if you watch the TV, you would probably come to the conclusion that there is. And, so yeah, ticket sales are up for several of the shows.
Meltzer then stated that aside from sales being on the up, some of the Canadian ones have lowered their prices, which could have impacted the rise.
Some of the Canadian shows are also having to do with lowering ticket prices. Hamilton and Toronto both lowered prices. I think they were doing four packs where you could get four tickets for like $16.50 each. And so that sold a decent amount of tickets.
Toronto’s still down, but it’s Saturday, but it’s over 3,000. So it’s not, you know, horrible. If they get to four to four, I would say, you know, based on what they’ve been doing, I would say that’s, that’s okay. When it’s at 2,500 or 3,000, I wouldn’t call it that good.
Chicago might sell out Wednesday night, though. It’s not a lock they’ll sell out, but they’ll be very close to sold out and they may sell out. There’s still a chance they’ll sell out. That’s pretty much it. Some of the other markets, there has been some movement of tickets too.
It’s not enough to say, ‘Wow. You know, it’s turned around.’ But it is a positive. I mean, it’s definitely moving quicker than some of the markets had been moving. There’s a noticeable change.
H/T WrestlingNews.Co