The professional wrestling federation, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has revealed that one of its biggest pay-per-view events, Royal Rumble 2023, held at San Antonio’s Alamodome, generated more than $7.7 million in gate revenue.
The new record, set on Sunday, January 29 IST, was much more than 50% than the previous record, created in 2017 when the show was also held in San Antonio.
In addition, WWE announced that the 2023 Royal Rumble set all-time venue merchandise and sponsorship records. Compared to the previous year, merchandise sales increased by a massive 135%.
Furthermore, sponsorship was nearly 200% higher than in 2022, with the first sponsored match (Mountain Dew Pitch Black) and the first sponsored countdown clock (Applebee’s).
Concerning the event, Cody Rhodes made a comeback and competed in the Men’s Royal Rumble Match alongside 29 other wrestlers. Rhodes entered the Men’s Royal Rumble Match 2023 as the 30th wrestler and eliminated 5 wrestlers, which included the second last wrestler, Gunther, to win the Men’s Royal Rumble Match 2023.
Towards the end of the event, the Bloodline launched a vicious assault on Sami Zayn after the latter drilled a steel chair into the back of Roman Reigns. Just before this instance, Reigns beat Kevin Owens to secure the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship after which Roman ordered Sami to assault Owens with a steel chair. A clearly annoyed Sami had had enough and hit Roman with a chair in front of his cousins.
On social media, the same Roman Reigns-Sami Zayn videos received more than 20 million views throughout all WWE platforms, becoming the most-viewed WWE clip of 2023.