Business is booming for the professional wrestling industry. The scripted sport is experiencing success levels that have not been seen since the Golden Age of the 1980s or the Attitude Era of the late 1990s. While wrestling has evolved tremendously in the decades since, one common denominator in those time periods is variety. Both the Golden Age and Attitude Era had multiple companies at the top, with the NWA and WWF at the top of the former while WCW and ECW saw their best numbers during the former. That pattern continues today with WWE and AEW.
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While WWE has a multi-decade head start on AEW, Tony Khan’s young promotion has proved to be a true powerhouse in its early years. This past August, AEW drew a crowd of 81,035 inside Wembley Stadium for AEW ALL IN: London, breaking the record for the largest paid attendance in wrestling history.
Seth Rollins Declares Wrestling Is in a Boom Period
The WWE World Heavyweight Champion is all about the boom.
Speaking on WWE After the Bell, Rollins pointed to AEW ALL IN: London‘s success as evidence that professional wrestling is in the middle of another boom period.
“We are in the boom. You have to understand, there is another company that just put 80,000 people in a stadium for one night,” Rollins said. “A week before that, we sold 90,000 tickets to WrestleMania, broke the all-time gate on the first day. There are seven, eight different television programs of pro wrestling on a week, not counting premium live events or pay-per-views. The talent roster, across the board, is beyond what any generation has ever put forward.”
That success permeates across the industry as a whole too. New Japan Pro Wrestling has expanded its presence to the United States. Impact Wrestling’s set is currently getting “massive upgrades.” Game Changer Wrestling echoes the hardcore independent spirit of ECW.
“It’s very easy to look back at the past with rose-colored glasses and say, ‘But this, but that,’” Rollins continued. “I’m not taking anything away from the guys who paved the way, I stand on the shoulders of these guys. I don’t do what I do without the legends of our industry that have defined their own generations, but they should be proud, and I know they are, because they are the people who got us to where we are now.”
