We are just a few days away from the first ever all-women’s WWE pay-per-view event, but one major criticism the company has faced heading into the show been the booking of their television leading into a supposedly historic event.
While Evolution has been pushed hard in advertising on the Network, the go-home episodes of WWE Raw and Smackdown Live this week both ended with men’s segments, heavily pushing an incredibly controversial Crown Jewel event that may not even happen as planned.
When discussing the reaction backstage, Dave Meltzer noted on Thursday morning’s Wrestling Observer Radio that while publicly it has been pushed as an historic event – and it is, to the extent that WWE has taken 50 years to run an all-women’s show – the “internal” reaction is that Evolution has never been viewed as a major show.
“Nobody saw it as a big show. It was a way to get Stephanie [McMahon] to brag about something, and it was a way to try to take heat off for the women not going to Saudi Arabia. That’s all. I was told – the fact that they put it in Nassau Coliseum alone tells you that they didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Nassau is considered one of the worst arenas in the country for them to try and get reactions.”
It was also noted that with less than four days before showtime, there are still around 2,000 tickets remaining on the secondary market. The feeling is that scalpers rushed to scoop up tickets thinking Evolution was going to sell-out quickly based on its “historic” appeal, but that just hasn’t happened.
What’s more, the entry level on the secondary market is currently incredibly lower, at several upper level tickets being sold for less than $10, which is unheard of. There are still hundreds of floor tickets remaining, many under just $60-70, which is generally around the entry price for the worst tickets in the building.