10 Lessons WWE Can Learn From The Biggest SummerSlam Buy-Rates Ever

Over the years, we’ve seen an average of 3.7 title matches on each SummerSlam show. Which admittedly is impossible, but you get the point.

However, if we were only to consider the five most successful PPVs in terms of total buys, that average bumps up significantly to 4.7. And it would be a whole lot higher if that figure wasn’t dragged down by the 1989 show, which featured just a single title defence. Meanwhile, other top-performing shows, such as the 1999 and 2001 renditions, saw a whopping seven and eight title bouts apiece.

So my point here is that it seems to be a case of the more title matches on the show, the more buys we’ll see as a result.

Of course, you could argue that the shows with fewer buys simply didn’t have enough titles available to be defended at the time. But even in 2011 and 2013, when there were a total of six belts on the company's books, we saw just three of them defended at the PPV, and those instalments were two of the poorer performing shows in all of SummerSlam's history.

So the theory seems to be fairly robust; more titles equals more buys.