November 21, 2022 Observer Newsletter: AEW Full Gear & WWE Survivor Series notes, UFC 281

AEW and WWE both have major events over the next two weekends, with Full Gear on 11/19 in Newark, NJ, at the Prudential Center and Survivor Series on 11/26 in Boston at the TD Garden.

AEW Full Gear is coming at a time when the promotion’s business indicators have not been good. While ratings have held up decently well when you consider everything the prior several weeks, the 11/16 go-home show did 818,000 viewers and 0.28 in 18-49. It was the lowest number the show has done since 6/15, during the build for the Forbidden Door show. That show ended up beating almost everyone’s expectations for PPV, but the arena business was also a ton stronger at that time.

The November PPV is traditionally the toughest of the year, with the exception of last year. The 2019 version ended up doing about 90,000 buys, the lowest for an AEW-billed show (ROH shows have done much lower as is to be expected). Last year’s show, which featured the culmination of the Kenny Omega vs. Adam Page feud, with Page winning the title, plus Inner Circle vs American Top Team and C.M. Punk vs. Eddie Kingston did 155,000 buys, at the time the second highest number in company history but it was at a hot point, and it is still the fourth highest in history. The 2020 version, headlined by Jon Moxley vs. Kingston for the title, the first-ever Young Bucks vs. FTR match, Omega vs. Page for the top contendership and MJF vs. Jericho did about 100,000 buys.

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