10 Fascinating Facts About WWE In 2012
4. 9 Of 12 PPVs Had Non-Title Main Events
CM Punk vs. John Cena at SummerSlam, Punk vs. Ryback at Hell In A Cell, and Punk vs. Cena vs. Ryback at Survivor Series were the only World Title match main events on pay-per-view in 2012. Yes, only 3 of 12 PPVs ended with title bouts. That means a whopping 9 of the 12 had non-title headliners.
Wow.
Matches such as Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar (SummerSlam), John Cena vs. Lesnar (Brock's comeback match at Extreme Rules), and even Cena vs. John Laurinaitis (this actually closed Over The Limit) were handpicked to go on last instead of the WWE Champ. It's pretty easy to see why Punk was p*ssed with how things were being handled.
Bowing out so stars the level of Triple H, Brock and Cena can main event is one thing, but Johnny Ace?! That's unacceptable. To put this into perspective, only 4 of 13 pay-per-views in 2011 closed with a non-title bout, and one of them was Royal Rumble.