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Update on WrestleMania 42 Ticket Sales After Pat McAfee's Discount Announcement For Night One
Image Credit: WWE
Tickets have become the main story of the WrestleMania 42 build. WWE has decided to lean into it instead of trying to hide the issue like they did back in 1991 when Sgt. Slaughter’s heel turn didn’t exactly fill the LA Coliseum. WWE’s attempted solution to the issue was having Pat McAfee go on about how nobody was buying tickets one week, then offering a discount on Saturday night while saying nobody should see the Sunday night show anyway. Interestingly enough, the Sunday show sold better over the weekend than the Saturday show, with 1,452 Sunday tickets moving in comparison to 1,265 for the Saturday event. One wonders if the result would have been different if a different spokesperson had been tasked with the mission, but I’m guessing that it would have basically gone the same.
WrestleMania isn’t one of those events that generates a big walk-up crowd. You’ve already decided whether you’re going to the show or not by now. There’s nothing WWE can really do at this point except add the typical 10-15 thousand to the announced total. They’re over 40,000 tickets sold for each night so it’s not like the show is going to be a bomb, but the numbers aren’t going to live up to what TKO & the shareholders were hoping for. It’ll be interesting to see if there are consequences in the weeks & months ahead.
WRESTLING HEADLINES 👊🏽
•WWE Confirms Opening Matches WWE WrestleMania 42 Nights 1 & 2
Both nights of WrestleMania should start off with quite the bang. Saturday’s opening match features the Usos & La Knight going against Austin Theory, Logan Paul & IShowSpeed. The Usos & Knight are always popular with crowds, and Logan & Speed will bring along their followers for the fun. Sunday’s show starts with Brock Lesnar vs. Oba Femi to get some of that ESPN rub. Brock likes working the first match, he’s opened WrestleMania as much as anybody in recent years. Oba’s biggest match yet being featured on ESPN can only help him. The quality of both nights of WrestleMania remains to be seen, but they should be helped early by hot crowds.
I find Roman’s interviews interesting because he’s the closest thing you’ll get in these wrestler media shots to the official WWE party line on things. He grew up in a well-connected family and has learned from every major WWE Superstar of the 21st century while working closer than anyone with the most powerful members of the office. Roman’s also well-spoken and doesn’t fly off the handle on various tangents. You might not like what Roman has to say on various topics, and maybe he’d be more interesting if he strayed from WWE-speak, but it’s a revealing look into how WWE views things. Roman reminds one of John Cena in many ways, this might be the biggest similarity between them.
MORE MUST-READ LINKS FROM 411MANIA
→Mr. Iguana and Danhausen: A Case for Comedy in Wrestling
→Hall's AEW Dynasty 2026 Review
→411 Wrestling Fact or Fiction: Will John Cena Ever Wrestle Again?
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– Steve Cook