Well, it's not the 1.9 million that Gus Ramsey of ESPN originally reported but it's extremely impressive nonetheless.
According to a report from WWE.com, WrestleMania 28, which took place on April 1, 2012, from Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida, and featured a main event of The Rock vs. John Cena, did 1.3 million buys on pay-per-view, enough to break the all time record.
From the report:
Preliminary estimates show that WrestleMania, featuring the historic "Once in a Lifetime" Match between The Rock and John Cena, garnered 1.3 million pay-per-view buys with global gross sales in excess of $67 million including the live event.
WrestleMania was seen around the world on pay-per-view in more than 105 countries and 20 languages.
That's a bigger number than reported by the Wrestling Observer just a few days ago when they reported the show did closer to 1.1 million buys. Typically, WWE reports should be taken with a grain of salt but this time we can fully accept their number because they have to report it accurately as a publicly traded company.
And I think we can all agree that 1.3 million buys is a smashing success. The year long build for the big match between The Rock (his first in seven years) and John Cena paid off in spades. The heavy promotion and the fact that the organization completely took over Miami all helped push it over the top.
The previous record for pay-per-view buys was set by WrestleMania 23 (1.25 million) back on April 1, 2007, an event that featured John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWE championship, Undertaker vs. Batista for the world heavyweight title and Vince McMahon (represented by Umaga) vs Donald Trump (represented by Bobby Lashley) in a hair vs. hair match with Stone Cold Steve Austin as special guest referee.
WrestleMania 28 featured the aforementioned Rock vs. Cena main event match but also included Undertaker vs. Triple H with Shawn Michaels as guest referee and CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho.
With The Rock already having announced that he will appear at WrestleMania 29 next year in New Jersey, not to mention Brock Lesnar lending his considerable muscle, it's not out of line to think that WWE believes they can set yet another record with an even higher buyrate next year.