標籤: AEWs

Ticket sales for tonight’s WWE SmackDown from the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida are significantly lower than where the company last played the building.

According to Racelytics, 6,704 of the existing 7,877 tickets have been sold, with approximately 1,173 tickets still available in the primary market ahead of the show.

The comparison to WWE’s most recent Jacksonville date makes for difficult reading. When WWE last played the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on May 17, 2024, the company sold 10,093 tickets for the SmackDown tapings — a difference of about 3,400 tickets from where Tonight’s Show is currently playing.

Both dates are the same on the calendar, with a difference of only one week in time of year, making the drop-off hard to explain as a seasonal factor. However, it is interesting that this is happening in the city that is seen as the home of AEW since its inception in 2019.

It’s the go-home SmackDown for Backlash on Saturday in Tampa, a card that would normally generate increased interest in surrounding television programming. WWE’s year-to-date average for 2026 sits at 10,556 tickets per show, meaning tonight’s attendance will be well below that benchmark, even if the remaining tickets are sold before the bell.

Tonight’s SmackDown card featured Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair, and Alexa Bliss taking on Fatal Influence in a six-woman tag match with implications for the Backlash title match, Tiffany Stratton defending the Women’s United States Championship against Kianna James in Stratton’s first title defense, a Gunther in-ring promo following his attack on Cody Rhodes, and a Gingerbread Man final. The Rite segment in which Sami Zayn was included as part of the production. Their United States Championship rematch at Backlash.

Fans have become more vocal than ever about the product WWE is offering its audiences, as TKO seeks to maximize returns for profit in order to pay off the debt taken on to purchase WWE. WWE will try to rebuild any distrust with fans, otherwise they will risk losing more fans.

Deonna Purrazzo has opened up about a creative pitch she made during her time in AEW that never made it to television. Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, the current ROH Women’s Pure Champion discussed both the learning curve she faced while joining AEW and the segment ideas she developed that even convinced Chelsea Green it was worth pursuing.

Purrazzo first talked about the adjustment he had to make upon arriving to AEW, explaining that going back to live television was harder than many expected. He received a big promotion early in his career, but the experience was not always pleasant.

“Now, though, I felt like going to AEW was one of those big moments where it was a change again, because TNA wasn’t live at the time. Everything was taped except the pay-per-views, and so I hadn’t had a commercial break in three years,” she said.

“So going back to live TV was really a big learning curve after I hadn’t been there for so long. Then learning the format and things like that, I felt like I was a little bit behind the ball, actually, about two years ago when I started there.”

It was during her tenure in AEW that Purrazzo came up with the segment concept she called “Purrazzo in Picture”. The idea was built around the picture-in-picture format that AEW regularly uses during commercial breaks, but was turned into a comedic vehicle for her character. He explained in detail about the pitch during the Fightful interview.

“I introduced Purrazzo into the picture. It was a mock picture-in-picture segment where we could pop my floating head on, and I could say shit about an opponent, or like a pop quiz, an AEW history question, and make it about one of the girls, and they had a problem with it, and then I could just get crushed,” she revealed.

“I was like, I don’t need to be like a serious ‘wrestler.’ I can just do ‘Purretto in the Picture.'” When I came up with this idea I ran it to Chelsea and she said, ‘Deonna, this is gold. You need to pitch it.'”

Despite Green’s enthusiasm for the idea and Purrazzo admitting that it would take his character in a similar direction to Green’s, it never aired during his AEW tenure. She is currently competing in ROH, where she holds the Women’s Pure Championship.