10 Most Overpaid WWE Stars Of 2017
1. Brock Lesnar
Brock Lesnar is an extortionate investment - to the tune of $6M, according to the aggregated "mathematics" lurking on the internet.
More of those murky reports suggest that the 'Beast' spikes attendances on his house show appearances - and even without hard data to hand, it's easy to infer that his presence on Big 4 pay-per-views helps to augment their special, lucrative, unmissable aura, even in this age of super-served bloat.
Does Brock Lesnar "draw"?
Ultimately, we need to ask another question.
Does the presence of Brock Lesnar truly matter?
Without pay-per-view buy rates to truly, calculably measure the Beast's impact, we must veer into the territory of the subjective. Gauging by the man's form in 2017, his role of 'Conqueror' is all too literal. He exists to ultimately put over Roman Reigns in 2018 - which required him, in 2017, to disproportionately dominate the RAW landscape at the expense of Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman in particular, neither of whom appreciably benefitted from the association like AJ Styles did.
Lesnar engenders a waiting game environment, in which his holding the Universal Title creates a dull holding pattern - and renders the rest of RAW devoid of both stakes and a central narrative focus. You could buy, say, The Miz as a challenger to Universal Champion Roman Reigns - but not Universal Champion Brock Lesnar. He's too powerful, and thus problematic to the concept of suspension of disbelief.
Perhaps he is worth the investment, but WWE simply has not maximised it - but whomever is at fault, the end result remains the same: Lesnar stunts the growth of the full-time roster, who cannot flourish with him atop it.