Last month, AEW and NJPW presented Forbidden Door, a successful show in all business metrics, from attendance to pay-per-view buys.
Coming out of the show, AEW President Tony Khan touted the show set its all-time live gate record with $1.2 million with 13,600 fans in attendance and 13,100 paid.
The early estimates for the show noted the show was down in television PPV buys from last year’s show, but were expected to be identical for international buys to Double or Nothing in May and would get a bump from New Japan World with an additional 5,000 to 10,000 more buys.
In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer gave some more insight when noting the show grew 15.0 percent in television PPV buys from week one to week two, bringing it to its normal levels. However, the second week of buys were down 8.4 percent of those from Double or Nothing. The TV buys were down 11.4 percent from Double or Nothing in the second week, although up five percent in streaming.
The event is expected to do more PPV buys in total than Double or Nothing thanks to the buys from New Japan World, but still down 7.6 percent from last year’s Forbidden Door on television.
Meltzer added, “With more buys coming from streaming and less from television, that’s to be expected, and with buys this week, that gap will close more.”
