February 9, 2004 Observer Newsletter: WWE business review, UFC 46

In doing a business review of the effectiveness of the WWE main eventers is a tough and contradictory exercise. Traditionally in pro wrestling, the idea was to look at houses. Even most of the wrestlers from the 80s and early 90s when talking about business, will talk about their sellouts, even though PPV is really where the money has been.

I’ve heard wrestlers brag about selling out Madison Square Garden, but with the exception of maybe DDP (who was the fourth wheel in a tag match with Karl Malone, Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman that did 600,000 buys, which at the time was one of the highest in history), you almost never hear of anyone bragging about their buy rates. On occasion, wrestlers have called me up to try and use that info for negotiating deals, although in recent years, there really is little negotiating leverage with one company. Among younger wrestlers, you really don’t even see that acknowledged.

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