Dave Meltzer Breaks Down Updates Surrounding AEW All In 2024

August is officially here, which means AEW is just a few weeks away from invading London, England for the All In pay-per-view on August 25. Five matches have officially been announced, with many more likely to be added, and in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer broke down some of the recent updates in terms of ticket sales.

Meltzer noted that there was good movement over the past week, with a total of 44,646 tickets sold as of July 31. Interestingly, AEW had originally stated that 45,000 tickets had been sold so far. Meltzer noted that a few thousand tickets moved thanks to a lot of local promotion from the likes of Mariah May and Nigel McGuinness. More AEW stars will be doing local promotion over the next few weeks, with the final week before the event being seen as a key part of the company's big push for ticket sales, considering AEW will be in the UK a lot earlier than last year thanks to the "AEW Dynamite" and "AEW Collision" events in Cardiff, Wales that week.

AEW will need to reach the 54,000 mark in paid attendance to place third on the UK wrestling all-time list behind WWE SummerSlam 1992 and last year's All In event. However, Meltzer believes that could be a longshot, as the company would need to sell around 10,000 tickets in the span of three weeks. Meltzer also noted that the lack of tickets on the secondary market is a stark contrast to WWE SummerSlam on August 3.

The recent movement in tickets took place before the big announcement that Bryan Danielson would never wrestle again if he lost his AEW World Championship match against Swerve Strickland, but will the idea of potentially seeing the "American Dragon" retire bring more people in?

Meltzer believes the announcement of Danielson's potential retirement would have been a big boost in sales in another era, but fans have almost been taught to not take these sorts of stipulations seriously over the past few years, especially in WWE. This would affect the draw of the stipulation, which given that Danielson is still expected to stick around in AEW in the immediate future, as well as the fact that the company could add time on his contract to make up for the months he missed through injury, the real draw should arguably be the idea of Danielson potentially winning his last major title on a big stage, not his potential retirement.

Overall, Meltzer sees the next few weeks as a crucial indicator on how AEW's pay-per-view buyrate will be, as the draws of it being not just AEW's first big stadium show but AEW's first major event outside of North America aren't there for the 2024 event. He believes that the company isn't as strong as it was a year ago, but the matches announced so far have had more build put behind them, so everyone will have to wait and see in terms of what the facts and figures will be after August 25.