AEW Dynamite Draws Huge $700,000 Gate In Inglewood, Highest Walk-Up Ever

AEW Dynamite from the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif. once again made history, but this time it didn’t happen until the final day of ticket sales.

In fact, last night’s Dynamite had its biggest last day of sale—or walk-up sale—in the history of the company per Dave Meltzer of “Wrestling Observer Radio.” Dynamite did a live gate of over $700,000, and Meltzer went on to note that this was one of the biggest wrestling crowds in the history of the Inglewood Forum.

Heading into the event, AEW Dynamite sold just over 8,000 tickets at the Kia Forum, a far cry from the 14,000 tickets sold last year in the biggest wrestling television crowd of the year for any company. Wednesday morning, WrestleTix reported sales of 8,627 tickets for a building set up for 10,000. It’s currently unknown how many additional tickets were sold from there. As somebody who was in the building myself, I found it mostly full, albeit with a few empty sections throughout.

AEW’s Southern California debut at the Kia Forum just six months ago was also one of its most financially successful television shows in history. The June 1 broadcast drew a live sellout of 14,459 fans (13,800 paid) with a live gate of $1.15 million. This was good enough for the largest non-WWE gate in the history of North American pro wrestling at the time.

Dynamite’s dip in ticket sales was to be expected, as they are just months removed from their last appearance in the venue. AEW announced a stack card from the Forum, featuring Hangman Adam Page’s grudge match against Jon Moxley and Match 7 of The Young Bucks vs. Death Triangle for the AEW World Trios Championship.

‘No Mercedes’ Trends After AEW Dynamite in Inglewood

One of the bigger talking points of the show was the rumored debut of Mercedes Mone, f.k.a. Sasha Banks. Though AEW teased Banks’ debut as Saraya’s mystery tag team partner, amid a monthlong buildup, no such debut happened.

“No Mercedes” quickly became a trending topic last night, and it’s unknown how many of the historic walk-up sales were due to the expectation that Mercedes would be All Elite. As a possible make-good, AEW did feature the surprise return of Adam Cole early in the night, though fans were furious when the women’s tag team segment came and went with no Mercedes Mone.

Dynamite’s success in SoCal comes days after WrestleMania 39 broke the all-time live gate record in the same city. Despite not announcing a single match, WWE’s biggest show of the year from SoFi Stadium has already surpassed the record $17.3 million from AT&T Stadium for WrestleMania 32, though it’s worth mentioning WrestleMania 39 is a two-night show.

AEW’s strong ticket sales in Inglewood speaks to the demand for pro wrestling in the up-and-coming region, which houses the Kia Forum, SoFi Stadium and the soon-to-be launched Intuit Dome where the LA Clippers will play. Inglewood is a historically Black enclave in transition, so much of the public credit for these venues will go to “Los Angeles” and “Hollywood,” as the dubious namesake of “WrestleMania Hollywood” suggests. But whitewashed marketing aside, some of pro wrestling’s biggest ticket sales in history are emanating from a Black city.