10 WWE PPVs Which Drew Lower-Than-Expected Buyrates (And Why)

Back when WWE used to count Pay-Per-View events as a major source of revenue, it typically wasn't hard to predict how a card was going to do with customers. Shows with anticipated main events drew well, and those with lousy ones usually didn't. Factor in proper build and scheduling, and the company typically got out what they put in.

The proof is in the numbers. The Rock versus John Cena at WrestleMania 28 - a dream match with a year of buildup - drew the company's highest buyrate ever at 1,253,000. December to Dismember - with only two announced matches and few headliners - recorded the lowest buyrate of the pre-Network era, with only 90,000 worldwide buys.

Sometimes, though, WWE's decision makers got caught off guard. Sometimes, there were shows that looked like winners (or at least not total losers) on paper, and they just didn't sell. Was the culprit poor scheduling, failures to determine what fans wanted, or just cases of too much confidence? All of those factors led to some upsetting shocks, as did many other avoidable and unavoidable (but mostly avoidable) mistakes.

This list looks at 10 of those PPV events that surprised everyone by underperforming, and just why they didn't deliver.

It's hard to call a Pay-Per-View that drew over a million buys a disappointment, but such was the case with WrestleMania 29 - the last iteration of the show of shows prior to the introduction of the WWE Network.

At WrestleMania 28, The Rock and John Cena clashed in an intergenerational dream match that most fans never believed they'd see - and the result was the highest buyrate in wrestling history. The Rock's victory over Cena was seen in 1,253,000 households, so it was a given that - despite the "Once in a Lifetime" tagline - the two men would be clashing again.

So why was there such a big drop from the hottest match of all time? For one thing, the buildup was weaker for Rock-Cena II - while the first match saw the men announce their intent to fight a year in advance and cut classic promos on each other, the second time they were largely kept apart. In fact, both guys seemed to spend more time fighting CM Punk in the lead-up to the show.

There was also the issue that fans could tell Cena was winning this time, and the bulk of the WWE Universe wasn't interested in seeing that.