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Famously, there’s the Madison Square Garden debacle that same year. With WWE back on the road after a year of seclusion thanks to the pandemic and their first MSG show in 18 months, Roman Reigns failed to drum up any interest in the show. After being slaughtered by the presale for AEW’s inaugural Grand Slam show, WWE was forced to pivot to actual stars, first bringing over wrestlers from the Raw brand, then later announcing John Cena, who then proceeded to actually move tickets.
Later that year, in that same market, Reigns was responsible for an abysmal number in the UBS Arena. Jesse Collings wrote in 2021, “On September 18, WWE was hosting RAW at the new UBS Arena on Long Island, New York. WWE had distributed 2,365 tickets to the UBS Arena show following the pre-sale (all data courtesy of WrestleTix). By October 12, they had only distributed 2,837 tickets, so they announced that Roman Reigns would be on the show. This was a great test for Roman’s drawing ability, since we would be able to directly see what kind of impact his presence would have on ticket sales, since he previously wasn’t announced for the show, and fans wouldn’t have expected him to appear on the show before he was announced.
On October 24, two weeks after Reigns had been announced for the show, WWE had distributed 3,169 tickets to the show. So Roman’s presence only led to an additional 332 tickets being distributed. 332!”
Collings continued, “A crowd of under 6,000 for a RAW show in New York City, in a brand new area, is not a good thing for business. John Cena, who is a legitimate business mover in a way the company desperately wanted Reigns to be, was routinely selling 5,000-7,000 extra tickets for the shows he was announced on during his tour over the summer. WWE’s rivals are doing close to 10,000 fans in the same arena a week later.”
