Coming out of Saturday’s WWE Backlash premium live event, fans were raving about the crowd in attendance for the show and the product that the company presented from the start of the show to the main event.
WWE also held Friday’s SmackDown from the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in addition to Backlash. This was the second PLE/PPV in WWE history to be held in Puerto Rico and the first since 2005 with New Year’s Resolution.
With such an enjoyable event, many fans are looking forward to seeing the company hold another PLE in Puerto Rico. While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that fans may be waiting a while as WWE got paid $1.5 million (originally reported by Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics) for holding the show here. Until WWE gets paid by the tourism board to run another PLE in Puerto Rico, they will likely just run house shows like they’ve been doing for years.
“The thing is, they’re only going to come if they get paid to come. So, that’s up to how much the tourism board wants to pay. And usually, when it comes to this type of thing. Everything is different. Generally speaking, if they want to bring you in, if the tourism board brings you in, they’re not going to bring you in every year. They’re going to use their money to bring in another act…they’re going to use their money on another act next year, it won’t always be WWE. For them to do a pay-per-view generally, and London is the exception, because when they go to London they’re not getting paid by a tourism board, they just feel like it’s time to do it,” Meltzer stated.
Meltzer noted that WWE wants to go to the UK for premium live events because the time of doing the shows in primetime is no longer a factor like it had been when WWE was on traditional pay-per-view as they can air it on Peacock in the afternoon while holding the shows at night local time.
Meltzer added, “But for them to come and do this, they’re going to have to be paid. They will go down there and do a house show, but for them to do a pay-per-view, they’re going to want a million and half dollars or whatever. That was what the rate was here. They got paid a million and half dollars by the tourism board to come in.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit F4WOnline.com with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. An F4WOnline.com subscription includes the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and daily audio shows in addition to thousands of hours of archived audio shows.
