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As I stated in my previous columns, "there's BROCK LESNAR and then there's waiting for BROCK LESNAR". That's just my opinion... The whole Authority angle is doing nothing for me and neither are the babyfaces going up against that machine. I'm happy to see Dean Ambrose getting some main event love lately, but the guy has actually won ONE Pay Per View match since the Shield broke-up a year ago. 1 PPV match won!! But I'm not going to get into sour grapes of the current WWE product. I'm going to discuss Brock Lesnar, whom I'm patiently waiting for him to return. Wrestlemania 31 and then the RAW following that were amazing performances by Lesnar. They were moments that could help catapult Brock Lesnar onto the "Mount Rushmore of WWE" along with other top great wrestlers like Bruno, Andre, Hulk, Austin, Rock, and Cena with a few others arguably on the outside (HHH, Macho, HBK, Bret Hart, Foley, etc.). Lesnar has been a part of the WWE's best moments such as his return to destroy Cena after Wrestlemania 28, confronting Triple H, attacking CM Punk, staring down all of those legends (Hogan, Flair, Nash, Hall), ending the Undertaker's streak, and destroying everything in sight following Wrestlemania 31. HOWEVER - Enjoying Brock Lesnar in the WWE is based on my current tastes/preferences as a mid-30's wrestling fan. I enjoyed Brock's first 2002-2004 run and was extremely proud of his accomplishments in UFC. But to many fans who were too young for the 2002-2004 run or follow the WWE's NXT developmental system closely, there is some valid dislike of Brock Lesnar getting in the way. After all, he is a part-time wrestler and when he returns, all storylines seem to center around him. Ditto for when other former big names, such as the Rock, return. I've seen many younger fans actually upset at how these veterans swoop in and steal the thunder of their favorite younger WWE superstars. I get that... Sadly for the rest of you, I still have this LoP megaphone and I'll repeatedly say "BROCK LESNAR IS GREAT!" over and over again. In fact, I praise the lord that he's in the WWE for the next 3 years. The real question, given the possible fan conflict mentioned above, is this: has Brock Lesnar drawn for the WWE? Utilizing statistics and other various tricks in Microsoft Excel, I crunched Monday Night RAW ratings for the past 3.5 years (God bless you Steve Gerweck for still tabulating them). I also took a look at Pay Per View purchase numbers to see if Brock's appearance on a particular show boosted buyrates. After all, Lesnar is an exclusive Pay Per View wrestler. I would note some slight error on the RAW analysis, but nothing too significant. It was not easy attempting to track down when Brock Lesnar appeared on RAW between 2012-2015. I had to painfully review results from that timeframe and conclude what counts as an "appearance" by Lesnar. I specifically counted anytime Lesnar was at the arena or if he sat down for an interview of some sorts. I excluded anytime Paul Heyman appeared on Brock's behalf. I could argue that Heyman's appearances are defacto Brock appearances because of the element of surprise factor about Brock possibly appearing but decided to exclude them. Thus, there is a real chance that the RAW shows without Lesnar that I classified could be spiked upward because of Heyman's appearance. Who knows? But I counted anytime Brock was present in the arena or did an extensive backstage or "via satellite" interview. I should also note that my Pay Per View analysis gets cut off after Royal Rumble 2014. The WWE Network was offered just before Wrestlemania 30 and therefore destroys any PPV buyrate data that exists moving forward. Sadly, the WWE does not release monthly WWE Network subscription numbers and I struggle taking the Quarterly numbers seriously because of the FREE months that WWE has offered since November 2014. Here are my results: (a) Brock Lesnar is a ratings draw for RAW. According to my analysis, whenever Brock Lesnar is present on RAW, the ratings averaged 3.10 for the timeframe of January 1st, 2012 to May 18th, 2015. For RAWs that I considered to not have Brock Lesnar during that same time period, I'm computing a 2.91 television rating. Using ratio analysis of RAW viewership numbers versus ratings scored, I approximate this as being anywhere between 200,000 to 300,000 difference in viewership, maybe on the lower end. The overall average for RAW during this time period, with or without Brock Lesnar, is estimated to be 2.97. (b) HOWEVER - 1st Quarter Ratings are considerably higher than the other Quarters. January, February, and March benefit greatly from the Royal Rumble to Wrestlemania bridge. I'm finding relatively strong correlation between RAW ratings and the timeframe being the 1st Quarter of a given year (using dummy variable analysis). Just so happens that Brock Lesnar has wrestled at Wrestlemania 29, Wrestlemania 30, and Wrestlemania 31. His appearances during March, specifically, could have benefitted from being Wrestlemania time and from other veteran draws reappearing on the cards. Here is the Quarterly Average RAW rating breakdown from the timeframe of January 1st, 2012 to May 18th, 2015: 1st Quarter Average RAW Rating: 3.14 2nd Quarter Average RAW Rating: 2.99 3rd Quarter Average RAW Rating: 2.98 4th Quarter Average RAW Rating: 2.73 Lesnar's appearances are mostly top heavy towards the first half of the year versus the second. In fact, he's non-existent in the 4th Quarter. (c) 2nd Quarter and 3rd Quarter are mostly flat, but... For the 2nd Quarter, April seems to benefit from the post-Wrestlemania bump while the month of August has SummerSlam. There is some activity surrounding the Extreme Rules and SummerSlam events which Brock Lesnar has mostly appeared as a wrestler. This year, if you didn't notice, RAW ratings were in a freefall after Brock was "suspended indefinitely" by Stephanie McMahon following the RAW after Wrestlemania 31. In previous years, it took more than a month for that RAW ratings erosion to occur. Some of the RAW episodes since Wrestlemania 31 were the lowest among my sample. Ratings definitely appear to be "bowl shaped" between April to August and then the decline during September. (d) 4th Quarter needs Brock Lesnar, badly. As you can see from the average ratings, there is considerable ratings erosion during the 4th Quarter for RAW. You could easily argue that the National Football League's presence hurts the WWE but Brock Lesnar has barely appeared during the 4th. He appears sometimes in December to hype Royal Rumble but that's it. The fact is that NFL's Monday Night Football has actually seen viewership declines as well based on the game quality (ESPN aren't getting the high profile games like NBC now does for Sunday Nights). In my opinion, the erosion of the Survivor Series Pay Per View, which used to be a big deal, may be causing fans to lose interest. In fact, the WWE gave away Survivor Series for FREE last year as their first month for the WWE Network trial period. However, what the 4th Quarter doesn't have is warm weather like the 2nd and 3rd quarters have yet they have higher ratings by 0.2 points. (e) Brock Lesnar was initially a Pay Per View draw, unknown later in his career beyond 2012. Let's present the Pay Per View data first (pulled from Wikipedia, the easy button information source): Extreme Rules 2011 209,000 Extreme Rules 2012 263,000 % Change 25.8% Summerslam 2011 296,000 Summerslam 2012 358,000 % Change 20.9% Wrestlemania 28 1,217,000 Wrestlemania 29 1,048,000 -13.9% Extreme Rules 2012 263,000 Extreme Rules 2013 231,000 % Change -12.2% Summerslam 2012 358,000 Summerslam 2013 296,909 % Change -17.1% Royal Rumble 2013 512,000 Royal Rumble 2014 467,000 % Change -8.8% Just as I can't fully give credit to Brock Lesnar for RAW Ratings bumping in March before Wrestlemania, I cannot say for sure what happened between Wrestlemania 28 and 29. Wrestlemania 29 made more money as a live gate but less in Pay Per View buys. Maybe the allure of Rock vs. John Cena and Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar were gone because both matches were rematches. The SummerSlam 2012 bump, however, is legit. That show was completely centered around Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar and it worked. That was a real drawing moment for the WWE as was Extreme Rules 2012. Lesnar's first real show back with the WWE and against John Cena and that drew 54,000 additional viewers than the previous year. That is crazy. Then, you look at the 2013 Pay Per Views. I still like the Extreme Rules 2013 number. 231,000 is still above the pre-Lesnar era Extreme Rules 2011 number of 209,000. I'll take it... SummerSlam 2013 is a much harder read... However, Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk was not the main event of the show. Granted, it was a high profile feud, but John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan was the last match. For anyone who wonders why CM Punk wasn't granted an opportunity to headline Wrestlemania 30, thus walking out, or wondering why the WWE pushed Randy Orton over Daniel Bryan for the rest of 2013, just look at that SummerSlam 2013 number. I believe that WWE management considers SummerSlam 2013's number as more of an indictment on CM Punk and Daniel Bryan than they do Cena and/or Lesnar. Brock Lesnar wrestled Big Show for Royal Rumble 2014 but I would consider the hype of the Rumble match and John Cena vs. Randy Orton (again) as the more featured matches. After all, Big Show has the Survivor Series 2013 buyrate disaster to explain for his main event match against Randy Orton. In my opinion, where Brock Lesnar draws is when he's against a HUGE legendary name such as John Cena or Triple H that will draw in older fans back to the WWE for one night only. Otherwise, results show that his appearance doesn't matter. LAST WORD: Is Brock Lesnar a legitimate draw? Well, he probably adds a few hundred thousand eyeballs to editions of RAW (more advertisers seen) and may convince about 50,000 more wrestling fans to drop $45 to buy a non-Wrestlemania Pay Per View that he's featured on against a big legendary name. Do the math on the Pay Per View and you've got over $2,000,000 in added reviews per show. It's hard to measure how much Brock Lesnar has added subscribers to WWE Network but it must be nice with the WWE re-signing Lesnar for another year during 2014-2015 ($5 million reportedly) and now the 3 year extension ($9 million deal reportedly). That money could also be in place to keep Lesnar out of returning to Mixed Martial Arts or UFC. As I reported in other columns, Pay Per View numbers were on the downswing through 2012. WWE diluted its Pay Per View product with the brand extensions and may have hurt the purchasing power of its fans by increasing the prices reportedly from 2000-2014. Brock Lesnar's addition may not have just boosted several Pay Per Views, but helped to stop the bleeding of numbers before 2012. Who knows? Overall, I would say "YES", he's a draw... Enough numbers that I've presented today suggests that he adds hundreds of thousands of newer fans watching WWE programming. What I found incredibly disturbing for the WWE was the 4th Quarter. WWE has to fix their operations during October, November, and December. If I were managing the WWE, I would use one of Lesnar's Pay Per View appearances for the October, November, or December Pay Per Views. He would be a great addition to Survivor Series and could team up with 4 other wrestlers to go up against 5 other wrestlers. Part of the charm of Survivor Series was the fact that unique wrestler match-ups could happen that you wouldn't normally see. For example, what would happen if Brock Lesnar was on a babyface team and he suddenly found himself wrestling against Rusev and/or Bray Wyatt? WWE needs to do something to increase interest during the 4th Quarter. What I would like to see is Survivor Series somehow determining spots in the Royal Rumble. For example, if you had the Main Event being Team Cena/Orton against Team Authority, that match determines the first and last 5 spots of the Rumble match. Thus, the team winners would get slots 26 through 30 in the Rumble while the losers get 1 through 5. Something like that to increase the "sense of urgency" for people to care about Survivor Series again. It's funny to me... During the Monday Night Wars, you never heard of the NFL being a factor in ratings. Now, it's the main excuse for what might be just lazy booking to rest up before Royal Rumble/Wrestlemania season. Hope you enjoyed this analysis... ------------------------------------------------------------ PHAT QUESTIONS I'm enjoying answering your frequently asked questions and other questions in this section. Nice little breather from the current WWE wrestling product. Thoughts on Tammy Sytch or WWE Hall of Famer "Sunny" performing in adult films? What would this do for Chyna's WWE Hall of Fame chances? First and foremost, this debate about Sunny and Chyna. Many in the Internet Wrestling Community need to remove their fimography out of the discussion. While that is a strike, Sunny at least has the benefit of making the WWE Hall of Fame BEFORE she reportedly signed a contract to "perform" in adult films. Chyna has already performed in adult films. Maybe Sunny has the benefit of making the WWE Hall of Fame before she decided to take the controversial job offering. The big difference is how Chyna exited the WWE and how she's handled herself afterward. Say what you will about Sunny, but she has rarely ripped her form WWE profession. Chyna, on the other hand, has made major accusations against the WWE and Triple H. As you saw by Sunny's WWE Hall of Fame speech, she was safe to hand a live microphone. Give Chyna that SAME opportunity, she'll go nuclear on a WWE stage. WWE Corporate wants no part of that. Back to Sunny... I'm not going to join the Morality Squad to be critical of Sunny's career choice. It's her life and she's an adult to make her own decisions. We don't know what is going through the mind of Tammy Sytch right now nor do we know her finances. It might be that this adult film option is the most lucrative option out there. We don't know... Doesn't seem like the WWE wants to offer her a Legends deal anytime soon nor are there any other lucrative options out there for a former female personality who is 42 years of age. At the end of the day, she has to pay bills and given how much interest she created on the internet during the mid-1990's, the adult industry is probably paying her reasonably well to convince wrestling fans to relive those memories. As Jim Ross kept bragging up, Sunny was the most downloaded female back then. We don't know what her financial situation. Thus, I won't knock her decision. She's cashing in on her name and wrestling fans' memories of her to pay the bills. The only thing that I worry about is Sunny needing this adult film deal to fix short-term problems. For a while, she was reportedly offering one-on-one Skype sessions (damn it, I just got it!) to any wrestling fan willing to pay. Now, she just upgrades herself into not just acting or talking about sex, but actually performing it on screen. That suggests to me that the wrestling opportunities have dried up or that she's in trouble financially. Thus, the need for a short-term fix by joining the adult industry. What this does to her long-term is the real question, but for a female wrestling personality at 42, she may have no opportunities left in wrestling. With the financial needs she may have, she can't exactly take up a regular job. She jumped head first into the wrestling industry at age 20 and left any college ambitions behind. I wish Tammy Sytch the absolute best. In my opinion, she worked for the WWE at the absolute WORST time (1995-1998) when backstage excesses were at their absolute worst. Many wrestlers from that era died during that period from what was being taken backstage or on the road. She briefly dated Shawn Michaels during 1996-1997, I believe, and Michaels by his own admission had real issues with substances back then. Sadly for Sytch, the reputation of working for the WWE back then has been carried forward with her. She is a very deserving WWE Hall of Famer, however. Nobody can take that away. She took the door that Miss Elizabeth opened and widened it to create many possibilities for females in the WWE. WWE could now market beauty within their wrestling product and females like Sable, Torrie Wilson, Trish Stratus, and a host of many others could ride that wave. Sunny was trule one of the first females to be featured prominently on the internet. She didn't just break barriers for WWE women, but women in general. Should Chris Benoit be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame? Hell no. Chris Benoit killed his family while he was under WWE contract. Why on earth should WWE ever honor that with a tribute? I don't care what he did for the WWE before 2007. Next question. Who should WWE acquire if TNA were to ever shutdown? WWE has told their information sources, repeatedly, that they have no interest in signing TNA's wrestlers. The dirt sheets have forwarded that message repeatedly. However, I believe it to be true... WWE is very picky on the wrestlers they acquire as Vince McMahon still has a liking of size and to a degree, so does Triple H. The signing of Samoa Joe fits the WWE mold better than most wrestlers on the TNA roster. However, TNA wrestlers should be encouraged by the fan interest in Samoa Joe joining WWE/NXT. With the WWE refusing to sign TNA wrestlers, the interest in Joe might open WWE's eyes that signing TNA stars might draw more interest than once thought. TNA Impact Wrestling on Spike TV, after all, drew slightly over 1,000,000 viewers per show. If morale is down in TNA right now, I would be rooting on Samoa Joe to succeed in TNA. If Joe succeeds, then maybe others on the roster or someone like AJ Styles would draw real interest from the WWE. HHH has improved lately on his developmental signings by acquiring some big independent names, but WWE still likes to mold wrestlers from scratch. Joe's success would change minds backstage and that's good for WWE's business. Should a developmental wrestler like Kevin Owens defeat John Cena in a match?. Nooooooo.... There needs to be a fine line between WWE Main Roster and NXT's Developmental Roster. The psychology needs to remain in place that NXT is the minor league for the WWE, especially when considering the #1 guy of the promotion. John Cena should be the LAST guy laying down for a developmental wrestler. However, Kevin Owens can put up an amazing "losing effort" in his match against John Cena. If you look at John Cena, who helped break him into the business? Kurt Angle. Cena put up an amazing match in his debut against Kurt Angle and was praised for performing so well in his first match. However, John Cena lost that match. In his "losing effort", fans didn't forget that match. Steve Austin wasn't hurt by losing to Bret Hart. Sting wasn't affected by losing to Ric Flair. Rock wasn't hurt by losing to Steve Austin during late 1997. WWE has put this weird emphasis on losing in an embarrassing fashion as a weird means of punishing wrestlers through booking. Just strange... Now, it appears that if any wrestler loses a match, it's the "end of the world" for their career. Bad psychology in place there. Right now, you're seeing John Cena wrestling his ass off against any challenger as US Champ. What's happening? Great matches and those wrestlers will benefit from their "losing effort" against John Cena. So should Owens. There should NEVER be shame in losing to a company's top babyface star. How can I become a columnist for LordsofPain.net/WrestlingHeadlines.com? Pay me lots of money... No, actually, LoP has a farm system for potential columnists known as the Columns Forum. I created this during 1999 (initially called "Phat Pharm" before I moved it to LoP Forums) as a means for LoP to replenish their columnists instead of hiring columnists who write for multiple websites. I was a hardcore baseball fan back then and doing more website stuff back then, I suggested it as an idea and actually managed it for a few years. Here we are, more than 15 years later, and the Columns Forum is still going and most of our columnists are home grown. But anyway, if you want to eventually become a LoP columnist, go to Columns Forum and work your way up. Tell them Tito sent you... Elimination Chamber predictions? Ummmm... Sheamus becomes Intercontinental Title Champion in Elimination Chamber New Day retains Tag Titles in Elimination Chamber Bo Dallas over Neville Nikki Bella retains over Naomi and Paige John Cena over Kevin Owens Dean Ambrose over Seth Rollins (just to "shake it up") Enjoy these questions? Let me know... SO JUST CHILL... 'TIL THE NEXT EPISODE! Comments and feedback are welcome. Follow and Tweet me @titowrestling or login in below to post comments. © Mr. Tito and LordsofPain.net/WrestlingHeadlines.com - 1998-2015
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