To start the WWE has a choke hold on the wrestling business as they need 100,000 buys for a pay-per-view to break even on the typical pay-per-view and they can almost do that with little to no attention to the actual event and they can almost have a pay-per-view like every three weeks and still break even. Of course when U get to the big 4 their costs are higher and they will need to reach a much higher number like closer 200,000 and for a WrestleMania they typical need at least 700 to 800 thousand buys to really be successful if not more and all this means is that if the WWE wants a wrestler they will get them with Sting being the only exception to the rule.
So ROH is going to have their first i pay-per-view Final Battle 2011 after getting on national network with Fox and their cousin stations on Friday December 23rd and even though it is positioned horribly as it is a Friday night and the kids just got out of school for two weeks and Christmas is two days away they will get more buys of this i pay-per-view than the ones that have come before them as way more can watch Fox than could every watch it on HDNet sorry Mark Cuban. It is getting a huge two month push on ROH TV and they have practically has the card written out already as Haas and Benjamin will face the Brisco brothers for the ROH tag team championship and the World champ Davey Richards already knows that he will be putting the title on the line against either Jay Lethal or Eddie Edwards but do not be surprised if it is decided to have it turn into a 3-way match and these are two of the three top matches on the card. The other match is a challenge from Roderick Strong to the world for anyone to come to Final Battle 2011 and of course it will be somebody new and it could be DELIRIOUS who is returning to ROH but it could be John Morrison / Johnny Nitro whose real name is John Hennigan whose contract is up shortly with the WWE and he has burned so many bridges that he is on his way out and his biggest mistake in the WWE was to refuse to work with Trish Stratus at WrestleMania 27 solely because he wanted his on again / off again real life girlfriend Melina Perez. The wild card in this situation is Samoa Joe whose contract could be up at that time and it looks like he will be leaving TNA and has worked in ROH before and with his disinterest in wrestling I think the WWE will not take a flyer on him.
While TNA loses money on pay-per-views for the most part as they only get 10 to 15 thousand buys regularly for their pay-per-view events and their high water mark all time is 35 thousand for the 2010 Bound for glory pay-per-view and after 2011 Bound for glory showcased Hogan Vs Sting and a very big push for Robert Rodd going after the title only got 23 thousand. TNA is more interested in TV ratings than the PPV buys and it shows when they build the end of the ppv so people watch the next Thursday TV when it is supposed to be the other way around with TV driving the ppv interest.
So on December 23Rd ROH iPPV which is only 15 bucks on ROH.com and will probably be available all the following week on their website and as it is through the internet instead of through the TV they will be taken in almost 100% of the sales and their costs are very low because their wrestlers make way less than wrestlers in the WWE and even less than most of the TNA talent. Also with it being 15 instead of 45 for TV pay-per-views it is way more affordable for a customer to buy the event and I would not be surprised if they get over 10 thousand buys for 2011's final battle.
ROH is the best wrestling show on TV right now
Tom Mehegan
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