The live audience is a major part of any wrestling promotion. The global pandemic gave a good account of how it feels to be devoid of fans. Although all the major wrestling companies did a commendable job, it was still a forgetful period in the world of sports. The return of fans to sporting events highlighted their importance even more.

WWE is known to hold its major PLEs especially WrestleMania in gigantic arenas. And it often claims record attendance for almost all of its events. These numbers can be accurate sometimes but at times they may be inflated.

Vince McMahon once responded to the inflated attendance

Wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer recently rated WWE as the worst promotion of 2022. And now he has claimed to have once posed the inflated attendance number question to former WWE chairman Vince McMahon.

Meltzer wrote in the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Newsletter, “I did speak to Vince McMahon after a WrestleMania about this and he said that the numbers they announce at WrestleMania “are for entertainment purposes only.” It would be surprising for many fans as they would have thought these numbers to have some semblance.

However, McMahon’s remarks from the past have all but burst his bubble with regard to WrestleMania attendance. With the WrestleMania 39 spectacle just around the corner, eagle-eyed fans would see any figures shared by WWE with apprehension. 

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This information comes at a time when the Stamford-based promotion has overseen the most successful Elimination Chamber PLE ever. However, it’s not that this over-reporting of attendance figures was a thing under only McMahon’s regime. The wrestling juggernaut has cooked up the numbers with Triple H at the helm as well.

The Triple H-headed WWE has continued the trend

The 2023 Royal Rumble event took place in Alamodome, San Antonio this year. WWE reported the official attendance for the 36th iteration of the spectacle as 51,338. And although the promotion recorded a whopping $7.7 million from ticket sales, it only sold 44,569 tickets for the iconic night. Thus, raising further doubts over how the final numbers were reached.

As the name suggests, the world of sports entertainment is majorly scripted. However, the fans would be hoping to find some sort of accuracy in WWE’s attendance data. Vince McMahon’s remarks in the past display that it is anything but.

And this practice could be undoubtedly be followed by other sporting events as well. And regular watchers would take any such future figure with a pinch of salt.

What do you think about Vince McMahon’s remarks in the past? Let us know in the comments.

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