WWE top YouTube Videos for 30 days: May 1, 2023 – May 31, 2023

1. Jimmy Uso did WHAT to Roman Reigns?!: WWE Night of Champions Highlights: 3,747,600 [Link]
2. Full WWE Backlash 2023 highlights: 3,414,679 [Link]
3. Carlito makes a cool return: WWE Backlash 2023 highlights: 2,738,777 [Link]
4. Bad Bunny vs. Damian Priest – San Juan Street Fight: WWE Backlash 2023 highlights: 2,682,911 [Link]
5. Full WWE Night of Champions 2023 highlights: 2,612,604 [Link]
6. Cody Rhodes tries to ambush Brock Lesnar: Raw highlights, May 1, 2023: 1,969,359 [Link]
7. Top 10 Raw moments: WWE Top 10, May 1, 2023: 1,550,650 [Link]
8. Top 10 Monday Night Raw moments: WWE Top 10, May 8, 2023: 1,533,579 [Link]
9. Top 10 Monday Night Raw moments: WWE Top 10, May 29, 2023: 1,513,521 [Link]
10. Top 10 Monday Night Raw moments: WWE Top 10, May 15, 2023: 1,486,932 [Link]
11. Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar: WWE Backlash 2023 highlights: 1,445,432 [Link]
12. Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa want the Tag Team Titles: SmackDown highlights, May 12, 2023: 1,392,291 [Link]
13. FULL MATCH – WWE World Heavyweight Championship Fatal 4-Way Match: Payback 2015: 1,366,834 [Link]
14. Full WWE Night of Champions Media Event highlights: 1,285,001 [Link]
15. Jimmy Uso: “I am the Tribal Chief”: SmackDown Highlights, May 26, 2023: 1,249,348 [Link]
16. MASSIVE REVEAL: 12 Superstars announced to compete for World Heavyweight Championship: 1,196,501 [Link]
17. The Usos’ No Good Very Bad Day: SmackDown highlights, May 19, 2023: 1,167,827 [Link]
18. Top 10 Monday Night Raw moments: WWE Top 10, May 22, 2023: 1,165,031 [Link]
19. Top 10 Friday Night SmackDown moments: WWE Top 10, May 19, 2023: 1,150,472 [Link]
20. 25 greatest debuts of all time: WWE Top 10 special edition, May 18, 2023: 1,136,161 [Link]
21. FULL MATCH — Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan — No Disqualification Match: WWE Clash of Champions 2019: 1,072,192 [Link]
22. FULL MATCH – Drew McIntyre & RK-Bro vs. The Bloodline: WrestleMania Backlash 2022: 1,054,265 [Link]
23. Zayn & Owens vs. Reigns & Sikoa – Road to Night of Champions 2023: WWE Playlist: 1,027,319 [Link]
24. Top 10 Friday Night SmackDown moments: WWE Top 10, May 5, 2023: 1,018,156 [Link]
25. Styles shows World Heavyweight Champion Rollins respect: Raw highlights, May 29, 2023: 1,007,793 [Link]

AEW top YouTube Videos for 30 days: May 1, 2023 – May 31, 2023

1. It was a shocking conclusion in the steel cage match between Omega & Moxley | AEW Dynamite 5/10/23: 879,649 [Link]
2. Sabu takes the side of Adam Cole & Roderick Strong | AEW Dynamite 5/24/23: 804,138 [Link]
3. The war between Naturally Limitless & The Mogul Affiliates continues to rage on | AEWRampage 5/13/23: 475,229 [Link]
4. The AEW Double Or Nothing PPV Main Event Has Been Made OFFICIAL! | #AEWDynamite 5/3/23: 470,786 [Link]
5. The Firm Deletion At The Hardy Compound | #AEWRampage 5/5/23: 429,928 [Link]
6. Adam Cole is FURIOUS with Chris Jericho after 8-Man Tag Battle | #AEWDynamite 5/3/23: 389,956 [Link]
7. Saraya Steals The Victory For The Outcasts and Shida Returns! | #AEWDynamite 5/3/23: 379,699 [Link]
8. Jungle Boy, Darby Allin & Sammy Guevara show respect before Double or Nothing | AEW Dynamite 5/17/23: 378,686 [Link]
9. The Elite vs. Blackpool Combat Club in Anarchy in the Arena! | AEW Dynamite 5/17/23: 373,614 [Link]
10. AEW International Champ Orange Cassidy & Darby Allin and STING returns | AEW Dynamite 5/31/23: 329,284 [Link]
11. Adam Cole & Britt Baker secured the win against Chris Jericho & Saraya | AEW Dynamite 5/31/23: 316,069 [Link]
12. The main event broke down post-match between The Elite & Blackpool Combat Club | AEW Dynamite5/24/23: 285,409 [Link]
13. The four pillars of AEW will finally collide for the AEW title at #AEWDoN! | AEW Dynamite 5/24/23: 264,137 [Link]
14. Wardlow calls out Christian Cage to a brutal outcome | AEW Dynamite 5/17/23: 256,991 [Link]
15. Jade Cargill vs. Taya Valkyrie for the TBS title is official! | AEW Rampage 5/19/23: 255,683 [Link]
16. HOOK & Jungle Boy fight off Preston Vance & Dralistico | AEW Dynamite 5/31/23: 210,640 [Link]
17. Ricky Starks put an ‘Absolute’ beat down on Bullet Club Gold | AEW Dynamite 5/17/23: 206,030 [Link]
18. It all broke down between the Blackjack Battle Royale participants | AEW Rampage 5/26/23: 204,423 [Link]
19. Things Between Ricky Starks & Bullet Club Gold Are Not Over! | #AEWDynamite 5/3/23: 204,171 [Link]
20. Kris Statlander’s Epic Return + the Fallout from Double or Nothing | AEW Road to San Diego, 5/30/23: 199,468 [Link]
21. The Hardys and The Gunns go face to face in the ring | AEW Rampage 4/13/23: 198,427 [Link]
22. Orange Cassidy & Daniel Garcia collide for the AEW International title | AEW Dynamite 5/10/23: 195,964 [Link]
23. Kenny Omega & Jon Moxley Put it All On the Line Inside a Steel Cage | AEW Road to Detroit, 5/9/23: 195,087 [Link]
24. Chris Jericho & Roderick Strong battled in the streets of Austin, TX | AEW Dynamite 5/17/23: 193,663 [Link]
25. Christian Cage had some bold words for Wardlow & Arn Anderson | AEW Dynamite 5/10/23: 193,343 [Link]

Other wrestling companies’ top YouTube Videos for 30 days: May 1, 2023 – May 31, 2023

1. impactwrestling: Trinity DEBUTS in IMPACT Wrestling | IMPACT May 4, 2023: 279,988 [Link]
2. impactwrestling: Chyna DEBUTS in TNA (FULL SEGMENT) | IMPACT May 12, 2011: 264,139 [Link]
3. impactwrestling: Trinity’s In-Ring DEBUT vs. KiLynn King | IMPACT May 18, 2023: 241,429 [Link]
4. ghcnoah: *Screams in the hall, destiny begins to move again! Unit withdrawal due to betrayal, and shock developme…: 232,355 [Link]
5. impactwrestling: Bully Ray POWERBOMBS Scott D’Amore Through A FLAMING TABLE | Under Siege 2023 Highlights: 217,133 [Link]
6. ringofhonor: The NJPW & ROH TV champions Zack Sabre Jr & Samoa Joe come face-to-face | ROH Honor Club TV 5/18/23: 202,177 [Link]
7. impactwrestling: Trinity SAVES Jordynne Grace from The Coven Attack | IMPACT May 11, 2023: 171,806 [Link]
8. ajpw_channel: *Kento Miyahara vs Tetsuya Naito Super exciting first encounter! / Yuma Anzai “Los Ingo! Let’s do i…: 162,280 [Link]
9. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Generation struggle in Toyama! Mayu Iwatani, Julia, Tamu Nakano, and Akari are summon…: 156,481 [Link]
10. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Mina Shirakawa defeats Saya Uetani with her new trick “Figure for Driver MINA” to bec…: 144,841 [Link]
11. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Natsupoi made a startling statement! “Tam-chan is the ugliest person in the universe!…: 144,480 [Link]
12. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Utami Hayashishita and Saya Uetani are in danger! Utami Hayashishita throws ice packs…: 139,179 [Link]
13. impactwrestling: Ric Flair and Jay Lethal’s INFAMOUS Woo Off | iMPACT! June 17, 2010: 127,538 [Link]
14. luchalibreaaatv: LUCHA LIBRE WORLD CUP 2023 Parte 1 | Lucha Libre AAA: 122,649 [Link]
15. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Stunned! Saori Anno loses to Julia and REstart fails to defend for the first time! Ba…: 109,913 [Link]
16. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Heavy air between Utami Hayashishita and Saya Uetani! ‘Do you mean me? ]-5.9 Osaka To…: 109,587 [Link]
17. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Suzu Suzuki and Maika declare a generational struggle with Utami Hayashishita and Say…: 109,198 [Link]
18. impactwrestling: Sting and Jeff Hardy vs. Bully Ray and Bobby Roode (FULL MATCH) | IMPACT December 22, 2011: 105,551 [Link]
19. ghcnoah: *”I’m quitting today” The monolithic unit is unexpectedly the third person to leave this year… The sud…: 105,329 [Link]
20. ghcnoah: *Venue support rate MAX! NOAH has this guy! GHC champion Jake Lee appoints Takashi Sugiura, the symbol o…: 103,135 [Link]
21. ghcnoah: *Screams in the hall at the emergency rescue play! To see these two teaming up…the chaotic junior batt…: 100,989 [Link]
22. luchalibreaaatv: LUCHA LIBRE WORLD CUP FINALES | Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide: 100,240 [Link]
23. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Julia stands in front of Saori Anno! “Did you join the Crybaby Corps as a helper? I’l…: 94,661 [Link]
24. impactwrestling: Trinity Battles Gisele Shaw in First Live Special Match | Under Siege 2023 Highlights: 93,470 [Link]
25. STARDOMofficial: *[Stardom] Saori Anno wins from Suzu Suzuki with “Special Poteling”! KAIRI, Natsupoito’s REstart…: 92,345 [Link]
*Video title was auto-translated into English from Japanese.

Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.

AEW Key Performance Indicators, 2023 Q1 🌏

➡️ Subscribers have exclusive access to reports like this for 90 days after publishing. SIGNUP NOW.

Download PDF version

This is to accompany a new episode of Josh Nason’s Punch Out that I’m appearing on to discuss AEW’s business in Q1 2023.

About the data

P2+ data for Dynamite and Rampage are sourced from Nielsen and represent viewership of people ages 2 and above, averaged by minute throughout the duration of the program. Data represents live and same-day viewership, not including delayed (DVR) viewership. Episodes airing outside the program’s normal time slot are excluded.

P18-49 data represents same as above, except that this data represents viewership for people ages 18 to 49, a key ad demographic.

TBS & TNT viewership is sourced from Nielsen via Showbuzzdaily.com and includes all programs that appeared in Showbuzzdaily’s daily reporting of top 150 cable originals. The data has been time-adjusted for the duration of each telecast.

Top 25 cable networks data is sourced from WWE investor relations’ key performance indicator reports.

Tickets distributed data are sourced from WrestleTix estimates of ticket maps.

YouTube views data are sourced from SocialBlade.com, which provides daily data based on the differences in the all-time cumulative video view count publicly visible on the channel’s “About” page. Adjustments are made by Wrestlenomics to exclude days with negative sequential differences which coincide with the timing of videos being removed from public visibility.

Google web search data are sourced from Google Trends (trends.google.com) and represent search volume values associated with AEW’s Google Knowledge Graph relative to the highest monthly volume, standardized to 100.

Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.

Vince McMahon vs. Paul Levesque market-to-market live event comparison

In 57 same-market and same-event type comparisons, we found 34 cases in which estimated tickets distributed was higher for events when Paul Levesque was head of creative, and 23 events during which Vince McMahon was head of creative where estimated tickets distributed was higher.

The average margin of difference by percentage for the 23 cases where McMahon had the higher tickets distributed count was 17%. For Levesque’s 34 cases, the average margin of difference was 39%.

Timeline used for McMahon’s time as head of creative was from July 19, 2021 to July 22, 2022.

Timeline used for Levesque’s time as head of creative was from July 23, 2022 to March 31, 2023.

For cases in which either McMahon or Levesque had more than one event of the same event type in a given city, we compared solely the event with the higher tickets distributed count. All data points in a given city are shown in the chart below.

Estimated tickets distributed data was sourced from WrestleTix.

Yes, WWE fan interest really did improve during the Triple H era

TV ratings and live event attendance performed better in Paul Levesque’s first eight months as head of creative than the year prior under Vince McMahon.

by Brandon Thurston April 6, 2023March 1, 2024

Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.

If WWE visited your town recently, attendance was probably higher than last time: Market-to-market live event analysis for WWE and AEW

By Brandon Thurston and Jason Ounpraseuth

➡️Download PDF of full report (subscribers only)

Our market-to-market analysis shows that same-type WWE events have mostly (13 out of 18 times) performed better in 2023 than the prior time a comparable event was in the city. In many cases, these events had the possible benefit of occurring in Q1, which is usually a good season for attendance.

In AEW’s case, there are fewer recent market-to-market comparisons, but AEW’s returns to most markets since late last year have been in front of smaller crowds versus the company’s prior visit for the same-type event.

Why doing it this way makes for a fairer analysis

When we try to make sense of attendance numbers (here, WrestleTix estimates of ticket maps), it’s important to keep in mind at least three factors that influence attendance:

Market (i.e., city or region): Different markets have different populations, different levels of enthusiasm for wrestling, and different economic conditions.
Event type: Different event types sell differently. Televised events usually sell better than house shows, and pay-per-view/PLEs usually sell best of all.
Season (i.e., quarter-year): Historically, in WWE’s case, Q1 and Q4 perform better than Q2 and Q3 for at least two possible reasons. Indoor entertainment tends to do better business during colder months. WWE runs a string of events around Christmas in major markets that often do well. And Q1 is thought to do well partly because of increased interest in events during the lead-up to Wrestlemania.

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To take these factors into account, this report (download full PDF) shows percentage differences in tickets distributed for events compared to the prior event of the same event type (house show, TV, or PPV/PLE) when the given company (WWE or AEW) was last in that city.

Quarter-year doesn’t determine whether a percentage difference comparison is made, but is displayed for readers to consider.

Because Dynamite events tend to perform better than events that are only Rampage tapings (as opposed to tapings for both Dynamite and Rampage), Rampage (grouped with Battle of the Belts) are recognized as a separate event type and therefore may only be compared to other sole Rampage or Battle of the Belt tapings, and not to Dynamite tapings in the same city.

Where “No comp avail” is entered, there was no valid comparison for events that have taken place since both companies returned to touring in Q3 2021.

Summary of recent events for WWE and AEW

A week ago Monday, WWE was in Brooklyn, New York at Barclays Center. It marked the fifth time in the past two years WWE has been in the market. The Feb. 13 Raw moved 10,818 tickets, which was a slight decrease from the 11,223 tickets distributed the last time WWE was in the market for Raw on Oct. 10, 2022.

But that event marked a greater increase from the two previous TV events in Brooklyn. The Raw after Survivor Series on Nov. 22, 2021, moved 5,484 tickets, and the Smackdown on March 25, 2022, moved 9,300 tickets. The ticket increase from the Raw on Nov. 22, 2021, to the Raw on Oct. 10, 2022, was 105%.

Taking a look at other events in the New York market for WWE, a Raw at Madison Square Garden on July 25, 2022, moved 13,379 tickets, which was comparable to a Smackdown from Sept. 10, 2021.

The largest show-to-show difference in the same market for WWE was from a Jan. 20, 2022 Raw in the Philadelphia market that moved 5,699 tickets, and this year on Jan. 23, the “Raw 30” special taping moved 14,451 tickets. This was a 154% increase.

Taking a look at AEW, it ran new markets in February in Laredo, Texas, and El Paso, Texas. Those Dynamite events moved 3,228 and 4,217 tickets, respectively.

AEW also ran Dayton, Ohio at the beginning of February, and Dynamite moved 4,736 tickets. The final two weeks of January marked the first time AEW was in the Lexington, Ky. and Fresno, Calif. markets Those Dynamite tapings had 5,494 and 5,111 tickets distributed, respectively.

The Feb. 10 Smackdown was the first time in over a year WWE had been in the Uncasville, Conn. market. That event at Mohegan Sun Arena moved 6,449 tickets, which was a 2% decrease from the Jan. 7, 2022 Smackdown which moved 6,595 tickets.

In that same week, Raw was in the Orlando market on Feb., 6 in a taping that moved 9.926 tickets. This was a 21% increase from an Aug. 9, 2021 Raw that had 8,225 tickets distributed.

A day prior, there was a WWE house show in Pensacola, Fla. on Feb. 5 that moved 5,295 tickets. This was a 34% increase from the last house show in the Pensacola, Fla. market on March 13, 2022, which moved 3,942 tickets.

During that same weekend, there was a house show in the Columbus, Ga. market that had 5,747 tickets distributed, which was a 16% increase from a March 12, 2022 house show in the same market.

NXT Vengeance Day was in the Charlotte market at Spectrum Center. The premium live event moved 5,719 tickets. The last time WWE was in the market was for a Raw on Oct. 24, 2022, moving 7,570 tickets. There was one other event in the market in 2022 on March 18. This was a Smackdown that had 8,079 tickets distributed. WWE also ran a house show on Aug. 14, 2021, that moved 7,524 tickets.

The first Smackdown of February was run in the Greenville, S.C. market. This event had 9,756 tickets distributed, which was a 48% increase from the last Smackdown in the market on Aug. 5, 2022, which moved 6,585 tickets.

Brandon Thurston and Jason Ounpraseuth
brandon@wrestlenomics.com