As noted before, AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling are currently estimated to have generated a higher amount of pay-per-view buys for this past Forbidden Door II event compared to last year’s event, which generated around 141,000 buys.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Forbidden Door II’s streaming buys was up 5% and cable television buys were down 11.7% compared to both this past May’s Double or Nothing 2023 event and this past March’s Revolution 2023 event based on current data and estimates. Meltzer reported that other data reports currently list liner cable television buys as being down closer to 15% instead.
In regards to international PPV buys, Meltzer reported that the current international buys outside of Japen were identical to Double or Nothing 2023. Meltzer reported that when not including Japan and NJPW’s New Japan World service, Forbidden Door II’s buys are currently estimated to be similar to what Double or Nothing generated at around 140,000 buys. When including New Japan World, Forbidden Door II is currently estimated to have generated around 145,000 to 150,000 buys.
In regards to comparisons with last year’s event, Meltzer reported that Forbidden Door II’s cable television buys are currently down by around 19.6% compared to last year’s event. Meltzer reported that the main reason is due to the large migration from cable to streaming purchases for AEW events over the past year.
Meltzer reported that it is currently not known if Forbidden Door II managed to get a boost or not from late PPV purchases like AEW got with their Double or Nothing 2023 and Revolution 2023 events.