If there’s one criticism that has been lobbied at WWE in recent years that all fans can agree on, it’s that ticket prices have reached an obscenely high level. It has reached the point where WrestleMania 42 is just a few weeks away, and despite taking place in the same city and venue as last year, ticket sales for WWE’s biggest show of the year have been 18% lower than WrestleMania 41. The company did hold a brief discount sale in February, but there was little to no movement as far as tickets were concerned. This all led to a much bigger discount sale on March 16, with Dave Meltzer breaking down all the numbers in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

The sale that took place on March 16 wasn’t just for WrestleMania 42 tickets, it was for all events through to June 9 including non-televised house shows. All tickets were discounted by 31.6% to commemorate the date, which many wrestling fans jokingly refer to as “Stone Cold Steve Austin Day” given his “Austin 3:16” promo and best selling t-shirt, which itself is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

The real question was very simple, did the sale actually work? The answer, is yes. Meltzer noted that a large number of house shows shifted over 1,000 tickets for each show, and as far as WrestleMania 42 is concerned, around 2,000 tickets were sold for each individual night. At the time of writing, that puts night one of WrestleMania to 39,425 tickets sold, while night two finally passed the 40,000 mark as 40,687 tickets are currently out. This year’s “Showcase of the Immortals” is still behind the pace of WrestleMania 41, but instead of consistently being around 18% behind, WrestleMania 42 is now around 11.2% behind the pace of last year.

For the fans who don’t to outright buy the tickets from WWE and would rather pick them up on the secondary market, they might be in luck. Meltzer reported that the secondary market is much lower than this time last year, 33.8% to be exact. The current lowest price to get a seat for night one on the secondary market is $237 and $221 for night two, which Meltzer did say is still very expensive, but compared to WrestleMania 41, it’s significantly down.

Throughout her WWE career, Bayley has used multiple theme songs to accompany the different types of characters she’s played on-screen, with her most iconic entrance track being “Turn It Up,” which originated in “WWE NXT” for her “Hugger” persona. Although the theme was popular amongst fans, Bayley revealed in a recent interview with “IGN” that she initially despised the Hugger song, and reflected on all the entrance music she’s used during her time with WWE.

“They’d sent me like, ‘Hey, this is what we’re thinking for music.’ I hated it. And then the next text was ‘Hunter loves it.’ And I said, ‘All right, sounds good.’ Like that’s my song and then grew to love it, you know? Like people just got really excited when it came on, and then when I turned heel, it was the song that I ended up keeping they were like, ‘Hey, this is just for tonight. We don’t have to keep it.’ But then I really liked it, you know? I like the little guitar solo in it. So we kept that and then when Damage Control came about, we kind of collabed on that.”

Bayley also shared that the theme song she uses today was only supposed to be used for her match against IYO SKY at WrestleMania 40, but it’s continued to be her entrance music for the past two years, despite it not being her favorite theme from her career.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “IGN” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

After regaining the Women’s US Title with a win over Giulia on November 7, Green recalled wanting to make her second reign stand apart from her first one. Given its sizable decrease in length, though, Green never got an opportunity to implement many changes.

“Then on the second run, I wanted to figure out how to make it different,” she said. “But honestly, it was so short lived that I didn’t really have a chance to make it any different. I just tried to kind of build on what I already had before while being a double champion with Ethan [Page]. I think that’s how it was different was including Ethan in the moment and having us kind of go for all of North America.”

As Green alluded to, this Women’s US Title run intersected with her reign as AAA World Mixed Tag Team Champion alongside “WWE NXT” star Ethan Page. Both she and Page leaned into their Canadian roots during this time, with Page notably remodeling the NXT North American Championship into the Canada flag. Meanwhile, Green displayed patriotic spirit for both the USA and Canada. This stint as Women’s United States Champion concluded on the January 2 edition of “SmackDown” at the hands of Giulia.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Beyond The Bell” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL bid farewell to New Japan Pro Wrestling earlier this year as his contract with the company expired. While he hasn’t wrestled since January, his name has been brought up multiple times in recent weeks as it has been heavily rumored that the “King of Darkness” will be heading to WWE in the near future. No official confirmation of the signing has been made as of yet, but it seems that EVIL already has an idea on what he wants to do when he gets to WWE, something that actually goes against what the company itself wants.

According to sources close to the “Super J-Cast” podcast, when EVIL does eventually begin his WWE journey, he would prefer to start off in “WWE NXT” as opposed to the main roster. The reason for this being EVIL wants time to adapt to the WWE style before he moves up and is showcased in front of a bigger audience. However, it has also been reported that WWE higher ups would rather debut EVIL on the main roster instead of having him spend an unknown amount of time in “NXT.”

Regardless of where EVIL debuts, one thing he is reportedly adamant about is keeping his current character and persona the same, rather than changing to a different gimmick or being renamed. EVIL has portrayed the EVIL persona for more than a decade at this point, debuting it all the way back in October 2015 when he aligned himself with Tetsuya Naito to become one of the founding members of the Los Ingobrenables de Japon stable. He would remain with the group until 2020 when he turned on LIJ to become a member of Bullet Club, where he would eventually become the leader of the House of Torture sub-group that broke away from the original Bullet Club in 2025.