10 Most Important Questions Facing WWE In 2015

8. €œDo We Really Need Brock Lesnar?€

OK, so Brock Lesnar is a former WWE Champion who was also a UFC Champion. He draws money based on his legitimacy and the fact that he is an incredibly impressive athlete. For this, WWE pays him. Handsomely. However, how much money does he really draw as an absentee champion? Are WWE even getting a return on that investment? Personally, I€™d have to doubt it. The company€™s finances took a major beating in 2014 - and all the while their Pay Per View events are not featuring their friggin€™ World Champion, that€™s going to get a lot worse. Bringing Lesnar in for the occasional big money matchup (a €˜UFC vs. WWE€™ package, for example) makes good business sense, but building the company around him simply does not. In fact, building ANY company around a part timer is, frankly, stupid. No wonder share prices have plummeted lately; it can€™t all be the Network€™s fault. Lesnar beat the crap out of John Cena to win the WWE Championship, which did nothing but undersell WWE€™s top drawing card and then infuriate pretty much everybody as the champ took his belt and went home. Fans of Cena are heartbroken after watching their champ lose without any measure of payback, whilst fans of Lesnar are mad that they can€™t see him defend his title. Adding to that, fans of wrestling in general are furious that a part timer, with, it must be said, no real love for the wrestling business, can easily pick up the world€™s premier championship belt, but apparently doesn€™t respect it enough to even defend it on a regular basis. Brock draws money, of course, but there was no need whatsoever to put the WWE Championship belt around his waist. Instead of seeing Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Cesaro, Dolph Ziggler or any other upcoming star finally graduate to a top spot, we had to watch an old star take the belt home and not even bother to defend it. In what world is that €˜best for business€™ exactly? The question facing WWE now should be, which new star can be anointed with the blood of Brock Lesnar?
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I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction. I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long! If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it). I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work. Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that! Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?) Latcho Drom, - CQ