>While Mania sucked, it surely brought in more eyes than it
>would have had Rock not headlined it. In theory if more people
>are watching than usual and you put on a good show then
>hopefully a couple of those casual observers stick around
>after Mania and into the future.

Hopefully.

Or you can take the guys you have and build them, market them, and develop them so that they become significant draws in their own right. IMO the thing that gets accomplished more than anything is stunting the growth of your young talent.
I know you don’t think Ryback is ready for a guy like Brock, but IMO my Rocky III story for that would have been a great program that actually elevates the younger guy.

Punk lost the title to the guy who competes three times a year.
Having The Rock and Brock eat up what appeared to be 1/4 the of the show while Daniel Bryan and Dolph get like 7 miunutes together isn’t going to keep those casual fans around. The show wasn’t entertaining enough to do that. Yes, there were some quality matches but nothing had a chance to really cook. The Shield should have had a 20 minute epic with Orton/Show/Shamus. Build that up to ramp up the tension so that the finish has some real impact, don’t rush it. So here we have a situation where guys do a good job with what they are given, but nobody really wins out and gets a chance to shine because we have to save time for Rock to stink up the joint with a Nintendo styled matchup.

So what keeps the casual fan around? Certainly not the guy who’s not sticking around afterward. The remainder isn’t positioned to really sell themselves all that well either, so how is that a sound strategy?

If anything, you make guys like Rock and Brock have those ten minute matches and let the youngsters have time to shine so that you maximize your ability to retain those casual fans.

Believe me, the issue isn’t that Rock was there or was in the main event. It was that they did a piss poor job leveraging that drawing power to showcase the guys people will actually see on TV when they tune in the next day.

Mania had some quality matches with some good Mania moments. I’m on record saying that. I’m also on record saying that they missed some huge opportunities in the process that could have put the whole thing over in a big way, and that boils down to making new stars instead pouring so much into the old ones.

Further, WWE was at their MOST popular when they catered mostly to the young, adult male demographic and teens. Wrestling hit it’s zenith when they turned the ultimate good guy into the most vile of bad guys. I think Expertise is missing the boat just like Vince is, because a ton of money was made on an edgier product