Dave Meltzer Discusses WWE Bad Blood 2024's Numbers

Propelled by the red-hot Drew McIntyre-CM Punk feud along with The Bloodline saga, Bad Blood may wind up being one of WWE's best-performing PLEs of the year. Dave Meltzer of "Wrestling Observer Radio" specifically singled out pay-per-view buys to convey the show's success, noting that while most people now watch PLEs with a Peacock subscription, the number of non-subscribers who bought it is a good indicator of how successful it was.

"Bad Blood ended up being a huge success on pay-per-view," Meltzer said. "It did not beat Royal Rumble, WrestleMania or SummerSlam. But the next biggest this year was Elimination Chamber [and] it's far ahead of Elimination Chamber ... Even though pay-per-view is not a great and important revenue stream for WWE anymore ... the variance of buys will tell you what hits and what doesn't hit. And basically what that says is, the Drew McIntyre-Punk and the Roman Reigns-Cody Rhodes tag team match were major movers."

Meltzer added that Bad Blood will likely be the best performing "B show" this year, meaning a PLE that's not one of WWE's "big four": Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, or Survivor Series. He said Bad Blood was about 46% ahead of Bash in Berlin, which was the second biggest "B show" this year behind Elimination Chamber. Meltzer had previously reported how in-demand Bad Blood's ticket sales were on secondhand markets.

The storyline fallout from Bad Blood continues today. The two stars most responsible for its success have been absent, with Punk announcing a hiatus on the October 9 "Raw" and McIntyre off TV after receiving multiple staples in his head to close a wound suffered in the match. WWE's next major event, Crown Jewel, will presumably be headlined by Cody Rhodes and GUNTHER for the newly created WWE Crown Jewel Championship.