Dave Meltzer Discusses AEW Struggling With Momentum

AEW are coming off a hugely successful Forbidden Door pay-per-view with NJPW, which broke the $1 Million mark at the live gate for a third consecutive year. The show was headlined by a critically acclaimed main event between Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay, with both men solidifying themselves as two of the biggest stars in the world. However, that hasn't changed the fact that AEW is in the midst of a down period when it comes to TV ratings and weekly ticket sales.

Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio weighed in on AEW's situation, as he thinks it's fascinating that AEW can put on great pay-per-views each month, which in turn doesn't translate to a boost in business. "It's funny with AEW, because again this year when you really look at it, you had that Revolution show ... and the Revolution show might have even been better because of the main event, just in a different way. They go in there, and a lot of these shows, they put on these great shows and you go 'man this is so good,” and then it doesn't move anything."

Meltzer noted that despite putting on a hot show with big name main event stars, the upcoming episode of "AEW Dynamite" in Chicago hasn't sold out, and the momentum created by pay-per-views seems to end the moment the show ends. "The momentum is there the night of the pay-per-view, but then a couple of days later it's not there. It's a really — I think it's just a difficult time because I've seen stuff in monopoly territories, if you have a show like this and you come out with momentum, you actually have momentum and business changes, but I don't anticipate that happening here. Maybe I'll be wrong."

Please credit Wrestling Observer Radio when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.