10 Most Important Days In The Creation Of AEW
1. Double Or Nothing (25 May 2019)
All Elite Wrestling set sail on their maiden pay-per-view voyage on 25 May and while quality is subjective, key metrics show Double Or Nothing was a complete, objective success.
The vast majority of the show's 11,000 tickets were sold in around half an hour during the presale. What little remained lasted just four minutes of general sale. A pay-per-view buyrate of something between 98,5000 and 113,000 greatly exceeded expectations and may have betterd ECW's best-selling show (99,000 buys), thus making it the most successful wrestling PPV ever produced by a company not named WWE or WCW. Per Dave Meltzer, it achieved a buyrate that nobody had hit without regular TV exposure since 2004's Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell UFC fight.
Double Or Nothing's critical response was largely glowing. Negative appraisals are just as valid as positive ones, of course, but matches like Cody vs. Dustin Rhodes, The Young Bucks vs. Lucha Brothers, and the six-person joshi tag generated tremendous buzz. Jon Moxley's big debut was one of the year's hottest wrestling moments, too.
A perfect show? Absolutely not, such things don't exist, but AEW hit a home run when it mattered.