8 Ways TKO Has RUINED WWE

6. Killing Towns

Triple H WWE Money In The Bank 2026 New Orleans
WWE

The numbers don't lie, and they're spelling disaster for WWE at Sacrifice.

Or, not quite disaster, and not (yet) at Sacrifice, but not good, and not showing signs of getting better any time soon.

To deny that the market leader was hotter than the sun in 2023/24 was to bury your head in tribalistic sand, but 2025's been the year WWE has cooled substantially. And after months of undergoing a patently obvious creative decline, the organisation has finally been punished for its actions where it counts - at the box office.

TKO - seemingly in an act of defiance - are yet to act at all. Bad product is one big reason the numbers at the buildings are down, and will always be the most important reason of all. There's always been excuses for cold times in wrestling companies; bad weather, other local sports events, public holidays, something else on television, bad economy, you know and have heard the usual ones trotted out. But those identical excuses are never required when the going is good, and mostly why nobody within WWE was really talking about them in 2023 and 2024.

Even if we assume any of the above rationales were reasons for the lower turnouts in multiple towns, the booking fall-off wouldn't be the only thing keeping fans away. TKO, much as they did with UFC years earlier, have decided to take a very expensive gamble and let the market decide if it pays off...

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett