FCW Finally Gets Running Water, 'Mania 24 Attendance, More

Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Florida Championship Wrestling is currently considered to be a disaster area. While they finally got running water at the facility, they still are not running weekly TV shows as they had planned. They are running weekly shows at a bar, but do not have a weekly schedule in place as they had planned, which the talents need to gain experience. They have around four-dozen talents down there, and as of now Tom Prichard is running all of the in-ring training of these talents. Many are now questioning why WWE dropped OVW before they had Florida fully up and running. Even with WWE pulling their support of OVW, the promotion is still running strong with many different training classes, different trainers, a fully up to code facility, weekly TV and a house show loop that still allows all of their workers to work regularly from Thursday through Sunday.

The paid attendance for WrestleMania 24 in Orlando, Florida ended up at 63,100, so the event was more papered than what the company estimates first indicated with 11,500 free tickets given away for the show. This would make it the most papered WrestleMania since 1992, which set a record by giving away 15,000 tickets. Despite the large attendance, it was not the "hot live ticket" that recent outdoor WrestleMania's had been. Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s involvement also had virtually no impact on the live gate since a majority of the tickets were sold well in advance and when the Mayweather announcement went down, ticket sales following that were slower than many expected. There is interest in having WWE return to Orlando as they loved the local media coverage treating it as if they were hosting the Super Bowl.