The biggest party of the summer has come and gone for WWE, but it seems that the party wasn’t as big as the company was hoping for. In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer broke down all of the details from WWE SummerSlam 2026, which had nowhere near the amount of fans that WWE would have originally expected.
Meltzer spoke earlier in the week about how WWE had tried to downplay the attendance figure by not announcing it publicly, something that happens at virtually every WWE PLE, particularly stadium shows. The figure of 35,000 people has been referenced since, but only one of the SummerSlam night reached that number as WrestleTix had night one at 35,654 tickets sold, while night two was at 33,719. Meltzer noted that the fact that WWE reached these numbers is impressive considering that just a few weeks ago, both nights were hovering around the 22,000 mark, and it was only a sale where tickets were dropped to as low as $25 did the figure move to near 32,000. However, sales once again stalled, and even on the secondary market, SummerSlam was considered the weakest major event of the year in all of sports.
The show having such a burst of sales two weeks out, only to then have little-to-no movement the week of the show, combined with the lack of increased prices on the secondary market, suggests that it was heavily papered. Papering is the method of giving away free or heavily discounted tickets to make a crowd seem bigger, but Meltzer mentioned that a lot of people who are given these tickets don’t end up going to the event. Meltzer did note that WWE could have combined both nights and stated that around 75,000 people attended the event, which would also sound good on conference calls, though that wouldn’t be entirely true as some fans attended both nights. On the bright side, Meltzer confirmed that the fan fest that took place over SummerSlam weekend did sell out, which would have generated millions in revenue.
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The fact that WWE didn’t even bother to mention the attendance figure for WWE SummerSlam 2026 didn’t just speak volumes to Meltzer, but it also showed him that the company weren’t happy with the show’s performance. However, there is one other reason why a figure was not publicly revealed: AEW.
All Elite Wrestling will be traveling back to London, England on August 30 for AEW All In London 2026, a show that has already surpassed both nights of SummerSlam in terms of ticket sales. As of August 3, WrestleTix had All In London at 36,565 tickets sold with over three weeks left to go until bell time, and if that show follows the pattern of the final weeks seeing a huge surge in sales, this year’s All In London event could get close to reaching the 53,000 mark that the 2024 show reached. The fact that this year’s All In has already beaten both nights of SummerSlam is something Meltzer knows WWE doesn’t want to acknowledge publicly.
The actual SummerSlam attendance figure could possibly be revealed by the government as WWE got funds to run SummerSlam by the Minnesota Sports and Events Commission. Meltzer even noted that the government should release the figures because of this, but stated that WWE always tries hard to keep those things under wraps. If the government doesn’t release the figures, Meltzer believes that people will learn a lot more when the quarterly report is revealed in the next few months as gate receipts and ticket numbers, both paid and total will be evident.
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