What's the story?
As revealed on the WWE earnings conference call, Vince McMahon stated the 101,000 attendance that was reported by the company did not mean that all of the people inside had "paid" for their tickets. The news comes after months of rumours and reports that the company had once again exaggerated the figure.
In case you didn't know...
WWE has a history of doing this kind of thing, with the likes of Dave Meltzer reporting that WrestleMania 3 had 15-20,000 fewer people in attendance than was originally stated. Many fans always wonder why WWE does this as the actual number is usually pretty impressive regardless, but it plays into the idea that Vince wants there to be a larger than life feel to the spectacle.
The heart of the matter
During the actual conference call, Vince noted that the attendance reported by The Rock during the show included "ushers and ticket takers", which plays into the idea that there were actually only 97,000 paying fans in attendance. It's still an impressive number, but perhaps getting over that magic 100,000 mark was the achievement that Vince was shooting for.
What's next?
Members of the WWE Universe will be yelling out "I told you so" for quite some time, however, with no event scheduled in the future on this level it doesn't seem likely that the company will do the same thing again for a long time. After all, there never tends to be any reason to lie when ‘Mania is tend in a capacity stadium of around 70-80,000 people.
Sportskeeda's take
We understand why Vince felt the need to exaggerate the claims by a couple thousand people, but at the same time, he should've been proud of the fact they managed to get 97,000 people in there at all. Professional wrestling fans appreciate honesty more than anything else, and that number still means that they broke the supposed record from WrestleMania 3.
There will always be another opportunity down the road for WWE to improve upon the figure, and on that night perhaps they won't be so unlucky with injuries and things of that nature.
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