Bully Ray has criticized the rising ticket prices of WWE shows under TKO ownership, contrasting them to how it was when Vince McMahon ran the company.
WWE has broken several gate records of its own over the last few years, but jacking up ticket prices hasn't gone down well with many. Ray, on "Busted Open," disagreed with TKO's decision to raise ticket prices, noting that McMahon knew how to put on events and drive revenue, which current CCO Paul "Triple H" Levesque does as well. However, he suggested that it may be TKO who are pushing ticket prices out of reach.
"This might blow your mind if you already don't know already: Vince McMahon would never do this," he said. "As big as it was [WWE], and even a publicly traded company, it was nothing more than a glorified mom and pop fruit stand. It was run by Vince, Linda, Stephanie, Shane, and obviously, Hunter, you know, marrying into the family. Once Vince understood the old school way of promoting pro wrestling, of how to put asses in seats and how important the house shows were, as you know, on par with even the bigger events. That mentality, does Hunter understand and know that mentality? Absolutely. However, now that TKO is involved, I don't believe that TKO is family-friendly, because of what you just said, you know, people popping all at the same time. And then one night, for some reason, only 19,999 pop. And that's the night you got to worry about."
Ray feels there will come a tipping point when WWE venues may no longer be full, which could force TKO to realize its mistake.
"Eventually, they're going to go, 'Whoops, we charged 100 last time, and we sold out. We charged 150 this time, and we're only at 95 percent full. Why? Is it the strength of the creative? Is it who's on top? Or can people no longer afford this ticket?'" he asked.
He believes WWE now caters to a bigger audience, which means that TKO can charge whatever they want.
