Dave Meltzer: ONE Championship tops WWE with Denver gate revenue

ONE Championship logged arguably its most important card to date after ONE 168: Denver earned upwards of $1.2 million in gate attendance on Sept. 6.

Seasoned professional wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer wrote in his Wrestling Observer Newsletter that ONE 168, ONE Championship's second live event in the United States, earned $1.28 million on gate attendance at Denver's Ball Arena.

As per Meltzer's report, more than 8,500 tickets were sold, a record for ONE Championship in the United States. The event had a higher gate revenue than WWE's flagship Monday Night Raw at the same venue earlier in the week.

The card also drew higher ticket sales than NXT, WWE's third brand, which also had a show at Ball Arena.

Meltzer wrote:

"The 9/6 ONE FC show in Denver did 8,583 paid, 10,331 total, and $1,280,335. That’s an amazing number for that promotion. It was way above what the NXT show five days earlier did, which would be about 6,000 actual paid at much lower prices. While it would be less than Raw did, as Raw did about 10,500 paid and 11,118 total, it would be a far larger gate than Raw."

ONE 168 was promotion's live return to the United States after it staged its groundbreaking ONE Fight Night 10 card in Denver.

The May 2023 card sold out the approximately 5,000-seater 1stBank Center. This led ONE Championship to seek a bigger venue in Ball Arena, the homestadium of the 2023 NBA Champions Denver Nuggets, for its second event in the United States.

That move was ultimately massive for the promotion, as Meltzer observed:

"The idea that ONE in the same market could beat Raw in gate is mind-boggling."

ONE 168's headlining bout saw ONE flyweight kickboxing world champion Superlek Kiatmoo9 reach double-champ status. He knocked out Jonathan Haggerty in 49 seconds to capture the ONE bantamweight Muay Thai world title.

The card also saw the emotional retirement of ONE flyweight MMA world champion Demetrious Johnson from MMA.