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WWE has announced that it garnered 719,000 total PPV buys for the first two months of 2013. This is an improvement from last year because The Rock was wrestling on both shows.

The Royal Rumble PPV did 498,000 buys and the main event for the show was The Rock vs CM Punk for the WWE Title. Punk had been champion for over a year up to that point, but fans bought the PPV solely to see him lose to The Rock. Last year’s Royal Rumble event only drew 438,000 buys while the 2010 and 2011 events garnered only 446,000 and 462,000 respectively. This year’s Royal Rumble may not have earned the highest number of sales, but it’s the most bought Royal Rumble event since 2008.

As for the Elimination Chamber, PPV only mustered 221,000 purchases. This is still pretty low when compared to previous year’s events, but better than last year’s show which only got figures of 178,000. It is also an improvement from 2011 which only earned 200,000 sales. Again, the bump in 2013 PPV buys is thanks to The Rock who competed in a rematch against Punk at the event.

All eyes will be on the PPV buyrate for WrestleMania 29. WrestleMania 28 set a new record when it earned over 1.2 million PPV sales worldwide. Last year’s event was headlined by the first encounter of The Rock and John Cena. WWE is hoping to replicate the success from last year as both The Rock and Cena are to wrestle in a rematch at WrestleMania 29. The other main draw card for this year’s show is the return of Brock Lesnar. Lesnar has not competed at WrestleMania since 2004. He is set to face Triple H in a “No Holds Barred” match.