WWE advertised this year's edition of WrestleMania as "The Most Stupendous Two Nights In History," headlined by "The Biggest WrestleMania Match Of All-Time!" It's no surprise, then, that in the aftermath of this pretty good show they're touting the event as a gigantic success, apparently even bigger than the largest annual TV event in the United States.
According to WWE, which released this news in one of the least-detailed reports you'll ever see, they kicked the Super Bowl's ass this year across their eight hours or so of programming last weekend.
Here is the report, quoted—I have to stress—in its entirety:
WrestleMania 38 beat Super Bowl LVI with 2.2 billion social media impressions for WWE vs. 1.8 billion impressions for the NFL.
WWE won in video views with WrestleMania at 1.1 billion vs. Super Bowl at 618 million.
WWE won in engagements with WrestleMania at 87 million vs. Super Bowl at 78 million.
WWE won in video watch time with WrestleMania at 13.1 million hours vs. Super Bowl at 3.56 million hours.
Source: Conviva
So WrestleMania is bigger than the Super Bowl when using such specific yardsticks as "engagements" and "social media impressions." It's impossible to argue with that. But what if I told you that there was something out there even bigger than WrestleMania 38?
That's right, I'm talking about Defector Media, which wipes the floor with WrestleMania, and by extension the Super Bowl, in many even more important metrics. Sounds crazy, right? Well, you'll have to believe that it doesn't get any bigger than Defector.com after seeing these numbers:
- Defector Media has published 4,426 blogs and counting. Meanwhile, there is no evidence in footage of the WrestleMania 38 telecast that any blogs were published.
- Defector Media has sent 440 newsletters since its inception. WrestleMania 38 did not feature any newsletters as part of its program.
- Defector Media has sold hundreds of items of David Roth merch. On the other hand, sources tell Defector that WWE sold no items of David Roth merch at WrestleMania 38.
- Defector Media's Luis Paez-Pumar achieved a winning score of 15,000 points on the most recent edition of Defector Thursday Night Trivia. WrestleMania 38's high score at trivia is 0.
- The "Defector Sickos & Pals" online NCAA Tournament bracket group included over 550 entries. WrestleMania 38 had zero online bracket entries.
- Defector Media's office includes two bobbleheads of past or present New York Mets players. WrestleMania 38 devoted no time to any New York Mets bobbleheads.
- Defector Media's podcast, Normal Gossip, has attained over 500,000 listens in its brief history. WrestleMania 38 does not have a podcast called Normal Gossip.
- Defector staffers have typed the phrase "Mackinac Island" in company Slack a total of 16 times since the beginning of 2022. WrestleMania 38 failed to mention Mackinac Island even once.
- Defector Media's body of work includes at least six appearances from Jon Moxley. WrestleMania 38 had zero appearances from Jon Moxley.
And finally, most crucially of all, Defector Media routed WrestleMania 38 in the keyest of the key metrics: number of mousetraps fallen onto by human employees. While Defector Media employees have fallen onto nine mousetraps over the past two weeks, WrestleMania 38 couldn't ... wait ... hold on ... what was this?
You win this round, Vince.
