"Brock Lesnar looks to have earned himself his contract and gotten a good shot at a renewal.
Going into SummerSlam, the idea was that the show was going to either sink-or-swim based on the Lesnar vs. HHH main event. The show was an overwhelming success, doing 350,000 worldwide buys, broken down as 264,000 North American and only 86,000 international. It was the most successful SummerSlam show since 2008.
The North America vs. international split, with 75% of the buys coming from North America is a second indication that it was Lesnar as the reason. Lesnar’s main drawing power from his UFC days was gigantic in the U.S. and Canada, but little international, since UFC has never done strong PPV business (or even done much PPV) outside of North America except for Australia and that came toward the end of Lesnar’s UFC tenure.
It’s shocking that the July PPV headlined by the two Money in the Bank matches and C.M. Punk vs. Daniel Bryan did 88,000 buys outside of North America, which makes no sense for it to even be in the same ballpark as SummerSlam. Yet, SummerSlam from the domestic standpoint beat it by 264,000 to 108,000.
For a comparison, in 2011, SummerSlam did 180,000 North American buys and 131,000 international for 311,000. In 2010, the numbers were 209,000 in North America and 140,000 international for 349,000. In 2009, the numbers were 229,000 in North America and 140,000 international. In 2008, the show did 329,000 buys in North America and 148,000 international. The 2008 show was Undertaker vs. Edge in a Hell in a Cell match and Batista vs. John Cena as the top two matches, plus HHH vs. Great Khali for the WWE title, C.M. Punk vs. JBL for the World title and Matt Hardy vs. Mark Henry for the ECW title.
This continues the trend of WWE being well ahead of last year in almost every show, but greatly so on shows that have Lesnar and The Rock involved.
For a show comparison, last year had C.M. Punk winning the WWE title from John Cena with HHH as referee and Randy Orton beating Christian to win the World title in what was really just a two match marquee card, and it was really all built around Punk vs. Cena.
This year’s version was the Lesnar vs. HHH show as far as a difference making match, but also had Punk retaining the WWE title over Cena and Big Show, Sheamus retaining the World title over Alberto Del Rio and Chris Jericho vs. Dolph Ziggler as the major matches."
- The latest observer issue.