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WWE Smackdown Sets Incredible Records In Madison Square Garden

By John Canton • Published 8th July 2023
wwe smackdown msg new york city

The July 7th edition of Smackdown from Madison Square Garden set some impressive records for WWE.

It was a Bloodline-heavy edition of Smackdown on Friday night at the “World’s Most Famous Arena” Madison Square Garden in New York City. The announced attendance by WWE’s Michael Cole was 15,182 people in attendance for the sold out show.

The show was built about the family issues between Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa and Paul Heyman of The Bloodline dealing with The Usos, who walked away from the group. The opening two segments took nearly 40 minutes featuring the “Trial of Roman Reigns.” It did not go well for Jimmy Uso, who was splashed through the commentary table by his brother Solo and Jimmy was taken away in an ambulance.

In the main event segment, Jey Uso got revenge on Roman and Solo. Jey issued a challenge to fight Roman for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in a match that will likely happen at SummerSlam, but it’s not official yet.

Also on Smackdown, Edge beat Grayson Waller in Waller’s first match on Smackdown. AJ Styles also defeated Karrion Kross in a short match while Austin Theory retained the US Title over Sheamus thanks to some help from Pretty Deadly.

Smackdown at MSG was also a big night for WWE at the box office because after the show aired, the company tweeted that it was the highest-grossing WWE event ever at MSG, which is impressive considering the company has been going there for over 50 years. Obviously, the cost of tickets are always going up. It’s still an impressive record to break.

It was also announced by WWE that it was the highest-grossing domestic (meaning USA) Smackdown in history. Considering Smackdown has been on the air for 24 years as of this August, that’s another tremendous number to be proud of.

Those records for WWE at MSG are impressive and also follow records that took place last week at Smackdown and at Money in the Bank in London, England.

It was announced by WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque that Money in the Bank was the highest-grossing arena event in the history of WWE. Last week’s June 30th Smackdown in London was also the highest-grossing SD in WWE history.

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