WWE needs legends to sell wrestlemanias?

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Originally Posted by Kodo Sawaki

And yet one of the lowest buy record in newer times...

Statistics proves not that much. You need proven draws(read: legends, standard draws from the company and people outside who can drew some attention) in order to advertise the product and for the people to buy it, but it all depends on advertisement. If you have good advertisement and people who can carry that out, you are good in terms of selling the product. Ergo, if you just make huge draw you will make huge draw.

One can argue even on one more thing and that is that selling the product doesnt necesserily means quality of product. Wrestlemania 19 was very good to many people and yet Wrestlemania 27 was huge draw but one of the dissapointing Manias in terms of quality...

You're correlating two things that actually don't correlate.

If draw was in ANY way indicative of the quality of the show, then people would have to pay AFTER the show. They don't. The numbers is indicative of the quality of the HYPE of the show. This idea that higher attendance and numbers=better show is nuts. That measures how well the show was hyped. Now, over time this is true. If you are a consistent draw, you are good. You are doing your job as a performer and getting people emotionally attached. However, as a one time show, the attendance and buyrates doesn't measure what people thought of the actual show. Rather, what they thought of the hype.

Originally Posted by d_henderson1810

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Hate to burst your bubble, but WM X7 DID have Legends returning- lots of them!

The match was the "Gimmick Battle Royal" which the Iron Sheik won after eliminating Sargeant Slaughter (last time I looked, both of these men were considered "Legends" of WWE).

Yea because that match was a HUGE draw.... You're missing the point.

[Kodo Sawaki]

Originally Posted by TWJC: The Beginning

You're correlating two things that actually don't correlate.

If draw was in ANY way indicative of the quality of the show, then people would have to pay AFTER the show. They don't. The numbers is indicative of the quality of the HYPE of the show. This idea that higher attendance and numbers=better show is nuts. That measures how well the show was hyped. Now, over time this is true. If you are a consistent draw, you are good. You are doing your job as a performer and getting people emotionally attached. However, as a one time show, the attendance and buyrates doesn't measure what people thought of the actual show. Rather, what they thought of the hype.

Just saying that sometimes it doesnt mean a thing. You could have huge draw and still have a bad show(in terms of quality) and you could have a huge draw and still no good hype for the people to buy it. Look at WM19. They had Hogan vs Mcmahon, Rock vs Austin and still very low buyrate. So I say it depends more on advertisement then the legends. Draws help a lot, but you need good promotion for good buyrates...

[Cereal Killer EST 2012]

Of course! Those statistics read everything out for you. It can't be just a coincidence that every time we have legends at Wrestlemania, the numbers show high.

What would Wrestlemania 28 have been like without The Rock, Undertaker, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho? It's because stars aren't that big nowadays. I don't know why but they just aren't. The ratings, attendance figures, the wrestlers' skills all together are just unsatisfactory. Sure you have your Dolph Zigglers, your Cody Rhodes, your CM Punks and your John Cenas who are all talented but seriously, do any of them match up to the likes of Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart or Steve Austin?

So yes, they do need legends to sell Wrestlemania, simply because today's talent isn't good enough. They can do pretty decent but nothing life changing.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Maybe VKM and the writers think, screw the rest of the card and we'll focus on 1 wrestler and that 1 match..

I remember back like 10 years ago, more or less 2/3's of the card was heavily hyped, and now it's just like 3 matches that are hyped.. and the other matches have no backstory, or if it does, it's really shit.

Let's be honest though, it's the hype of the ppv e.g. bulding of the feuds and promos that actually get the ppv buys, because people purchase the event before they watch it, not after.. I don't get why some people don't get that.. I could say as soon as the Cena/Rock match was announced a year in advance, at least over 500,000 fans thought, 'Yeh, am defo going to order this ppv' I could be wrong, but then I could also be right.
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I think this years WrestleMania, although we haven't got any named matches yet! People are already thinking about ordering it simpy because they know Brock Lesnar, Undertaker, The Rock, John Cena and CM Punk will all have something to do with each other. Majority are not going to order it because of Kane, Big Show, Sheamus, Ziggler.. Which is a shame, because if they can't draw now, then when will they? I know for a fact VKM will not risk having a big time feud with lets say Ziggler and Rhodes.. Because they haven't made a big impact to even sell a ppv like Over The Limit.. Never mind WrestleMania..

[FlairFan2003]

There probably isnt enough star power on the show to interest enough casual fans to buy it without some major angle involving some legendary old timers. Fact is, Triple H-Taker had a lot to do with the success of the last two WM's alongside Rock's return. Also, you can see in the buyrate difference that two years ago just having Rock & Austin return in NON WRESTLING ROLES didnt really budge the number much from where the last few WMs had been, only having Rock WRESTLE added any buys.

As far as "Big money" matches left... Punk isnt big enough with the older and casual fans to be the top guy in a major match, maybe if he gets a win at The Rumble over Rock... Taker- Cena has appeal, but only if played really well where it legit looks like Cena can beat him and end the streak, otherwise people will not care. Lesnar is not a big draw, he has no ties to the 80's or 90s heydays and only was a brief part of the more recent run, Goldberg would be a bigger draw than him, better character, more popular, bigger star in a bigger time. Also, casual fans have no investment in Lesnar because you cant see him winning, would WWE really disrespect Taker by having some part time guy who barely made an impact in his career end the streak, a streak that HHH, HBK, Flair, Edge, etc couldnt end ? Fans wouldnt buy it and if WWE let it happen the few fans watching would revolt.

WWE needs some new faces to step up and become big with the audience but they also need more compelling television to expand the audience. Cena is basically Brett Hart PT 2, nice guy, good worker, reliable, not a larger than life figure but good enough to be a star in a downtime when people overall arent watching. Until some Rocks, Austins, etc start rising from the mid card and take hold of the audience it isnt getting any better for WWE anytime soon.

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Originally Posted by Kodo Sawaki

Just saying that sometimes it doesnt mean a thing. You could have huge draw and still have a bad show(in terms of quality) and you could have a huge draw and still no good hype for the people to buy it. Look at WM19. They had Hogan vs Mcmahon, Rock vs Austin and still very low buyrate. So I say it depends more on advertisement then the legends. Draws help a lot, but you need good promotion for good buyrates...

When I say "draw" I was referring to what was drawn, as in the buyrates. I was saying that because I basically agree with you. People say "well such and such show was the best because it had the highest buyrates". That's not true because buyrates aren't correlated with the show quality, but rather, marketing quality.

[FlairFan2003]

Match quality and drawing ability are two separate things. As a Flair fan I recognize that his matches against Hogan far drew more interest than his matches vs Ricky Morton, but for sheer match quality the Morton matches blew them away. I dont think anyone really equates the "quality" of a show simply with attendance alone.

However, if you want people to watch then you better have matches in place that will draw a lot of interest. No matter how much hype they give it average wrestling fans are far more likley to tune in for Rock-Cena II than they would for say Del Rio-Ziggler.