AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door is now in the history books. The event, which took place this past weekend at the United Center in Chicago, IL, saw All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro-Wrestling come together to produce an interpromotional showcase. Now, the early estimates on the buyrate have been revealed.
According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the estimated buyrate was between 125,000 to 127,000, with “about 80%” of those buys coming from the United States of America, which is reportedly a higher percentage than usual. The consensus is that, overall, the event meant a lot more to fans in the U.S. than those in other countries, including Japan.
The numbers for Bleacher Report, who carried the show for the U.S. market, showed that the buys were “not down much” from the last two pay-per-views. The late cable buys in the U.S., however, were reportedly “well down.” FITE TV and cable viewers from Europe were also not close to what the previous two pay-per-views had managed to draw. The show did 7,000 buys on New Japan World for fans in the Japanese market — though it must be taken into account that, for the Japanese audience, the event was broadcast on a Monday morning.
According to the Observer, 61.6% of fans who purchased Forbidden Door also ordered Double or Nothing, with 38.4% not ordering Double or Nothing. Since streaming buys were down 18% from Double or Nothing, it can be calculated that only 47.1% of fans who ordered Double or Nothing ordered Forbidden Door, and 52.9% did not. The Observer determined that “it’s not the same people ordering every show,” and that “AEW’s overall PPV audience is larger than most think,” but fans appear to be ordering specific events that draw their interest, rather than simply ordering every AEW show, “far more than most believed.”
Forbidden Door was headlined by a so-called dream match between AEW’s Jon Moxley and NJPW’s Hiroshi Tanahashi who battled over the interim AEW World Championship. AEW President Tony Khan took to Twitter on Tuesday to tout the show’s financial success.
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