By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The following matches are advertised for tonight’s edition of the AEW Dynamite television show.
-Jon Moxley returns to television.
-Sting and Darby Allin vs. “The Acclaimed” Max Caster and Anthony Bowens.
-Adam Cole and Britt Baker vs. Orange Cassidy and Kris Statlander.
-CM Punk vs. Shawn Spears.
-Serena Deeb vs. Skye Blue.
-Malakai Black and Brody King vs. “The Varsity Blonds” Brian Pillman Jr. and Griff Garrison.
-The return of TNT Champion Cody Rhodes.
Powell’s POV: Dynamite will be live from Washington, D.C. at Entertainment and Sports Arena. They will be live from the same venue on Friday for AEW Rampage. Join Jake Barnett for our weekly live review of Dynamite as the show airs tonight on TBS at 7CT/8ET. My AEW Dynamite same night audio reviews are available each week for Dot Net Members.
We are looking for reports from the Dynamite and Rampage events in Washington, D.C. If you are going to one of these shows or another upcoming show and want to help, email me at dotnetjason@gmail.com
4200 seat building, with a chunk of those closed off for the stage and entrance area, and AEW hasn’t sold out the morning of. Anyone in DC should swing by this evening and see if they’ll lower prices on the section that has multiple rows of 10+ seats unsold and listed at $65 a piece.
As much as I doubt you are looking for any facts or logic while you are trolling, Raw just ran the BOK Center and had it set up for 4,555 and filled 4,356 seats (both companies issue comps, so there’s no telling how many actually pay for either company because it varies from city to city). Meanwhile, tonight’s Dynamite’s venue is set up for 3,913 and they had 36 seats open as of Monday. You can find this all at WrestleTix. Why the small venue for tonight? One factor is presumably that they are running a live Rampage in the same venue on Friday.
Both companies are wise to run smaller venues when the demand isn’t greater. Neither is hot aside from their major events, and we are still in a pandemic, which obviously affects ticket sales. Paul Heyman’s mindset during the ECW days was that he would rather pack a smaller venue than run a bigger venue and sell a few hundred more tickets and have a bunch of empty seats (and higher building rental costs). It created a better atmosphere and made the company look and feel bigger.
AEW ran a bigger venue in PNC Arena last week and had just shy of 5,000 in attendance, but people who there said the atmosphere was poor due to all of the open seats or sections. It was only set up for just under 5,700, but some venues do a better job than others when it comes to closing off unused portions of their arena.