Business of Wrestling: Why WWE Will Continue to Bring Back Past Superstars

Backstage heat. 

The Rock reportedly had it after he returned to the WWE, and now, it looks like Brock Lesnar already has some as well. 

Why? Jealousy. 

The full-time WWE superstars don’t want some part-timers from the past coming in, working less, making more and “taking their spots away.” 

Here’s the thing, though, guys. You might want to get accustomed to it, because it’s going to continue to happen. And it should. 

Why? They draw. 

All you have to do is look at the WWE’s most recent pay-per-view, WrestleMania 28, which reportedly destroyed the company’s previous record for PPV buys for a single show. 

From SEScoops.com: 

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Early numbers for the WrestleMania 28 buyrate are coming in, and preliminary estimates are showing that this year’s event could be the most-bought pay-per-view in WWE history.

With one year to build up the blockbuster dream match between The Rock and John Cena, WWE was looking to surpass the annual benchmark of one million buys and had its sights on the record-holding WrestleMania 26 buyrate of approximately 1.25 million buys.

According to ESPN’s Gus Ramsey, WWE looks like they might shatter that record. Ramsey tweeted the following on Wednesday:

“… Rock and Brock each sign 1 year deals. WM28 did 1.9M buys. WWE was targeting 1.5M”  

"

Although this astronomical buyrate hasn’t been confirmed by WWE and there’s a good chance that it won’t actually end up being that high, it’s still likely that WrestleMania 28 beat the old PPV buyrate, and beat it easily. 

Does anyone really think it’s a coincidence that a pay-per-view that was focused largely on The Rock, Triple H, Undertaker and Shawn Michaels was able to generate such an extremely high buyrate? 

Of course not. The bottom line is that big-name superstars from the past are going to draw because wrestling fans love to see them back in a WWE ring. 

We love nostalgia. We love a clash of two generations. We love remembering the good old days of the Attitude Era and the early 2000s. 

And so does the WWE. 

After the company had so much success with WrestleMania 28, it managed to bring back Lesnar, who is reportedly signed with the company through WrestleMania 29 next year. 

Full-time superstars will complain, whine and moan about it as long as Lesnar (or any other past superstar) is in the WWE, but guess what? It’s not gonna change a damn thing. 

And the reasoning is simple—Lesnar draws just like The Rock does. 

According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (via Examiner.com), Lesnar’s last UFC fight, which took place against Alistair Overeem in December 2011, generated somewhere between 750,000-800,000 buys—on a Friday. 

That’s ridiculous, but not as insane as some of the buyrates for some of Lesnar’s other fights. 

Lesnar’s UFC 91 fight against Randy Couture drew more than one million PPV buys, while his UFC 100 fight against Frank Mir drew roughly 1.6 millions. Granted, the second one was on a really stacked card, but it’s still impressive nonetheless. 

The point I’m trying to make is that The Rock and Lesnar aren’t just being brought in to take the other guys’ spots and the money that comes along with it. 

Vince McMahon is a business mastermind, and he’s going to bring in people, especially superstars from the past, who can make the WWE money. That’s exactly what Lesnar and The Rock can do. 

If you could sign a guy who left the WWE several years ago but could come back and make the company millions, wouldn’t you do it? 

Of course you would. And Vince is going to continue to do it, too.

As he should.

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring or Twitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.