By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

It's obvious why WWE is looking to The Rock to help Survivor Series business when his PPV return at WrestleMania 27 continues to generate revenue more than three months removed from the event. WWE recording 65,000 additional PPV buys ($2.2 million in profit contribution) from WM27 helped boost third quarter 2011 PPV revenue to offset a decrease in overall PPV buys and helped overcome another weak performance by the Studios division.

Otherwise, there weren't enough signs of growth throughout the divisions and individual segments in the third quarter to be encouraged by WWE's financial position. It points to WWE building their business around the success of WrestleMania, reaping the financial windfalls the rest of the year, and trying to keep other segments steady with a chance to grow throughout the year.

At some point, though, WWE has to take a hard look at their Films division and make some tough decisions. For their most-recent offering, "The Reunion" starring John Cena, WWE gave minimum effort to selling the film with sparse TV spots. Sure, WWE will still record revenue due to home video sales after the brief theatrical release, but even those sales for past movies are on the decline.

WWE Studios head Michael Pavone departed the company during the third quarter, which seemed to be a symbolic move to indicate to investors/analysts they were "starting over" with the Studios division. If WWE is not going to promote their movies effectively, though, and if it's taking away Vince McMahon's time from overseeing the more-important Creative/Core Product aspect of the company, then it's time to consider swallowing pride and determining whether this venture is worth continuing.

-- Vince McMahon is more candid discussing the earnings results in the quarterly conference call with investors when he essentially has no filter, but even his more measured and prepared comments in the official earnings statement provided some interesting information.

McMahon and WWE management played the "economy" card throughout last year, but brought it back for third quarter 2011 to describe "challenging economic headwinds, both domestically and abroad."

This was most reflected in the PPV segment, which saw a 14 percent decline in international buys during the quarter. A lot of that depends on which PPVs WWE's U.K. TV partner shows, but it also reflects international customers catching up to domestic customers by skipping some of the more-skippable WWE PPVs.

-McMahon also linked "the economy" and "ongoing talent transition" as two items that "affected business results." WWE claims their transition to a new group of top stars will be successful because of their "history of developing talent," but the company currently is not consistent-enough for this to stick even as they remain "confident we can address our creative challenges."

Notably, Triple H, Kevin Nash, John Laurinaitis, and Michael Cole have been positioned as top stars some weeks, the likes of Miz & Truth are credible one week and taken out by John Cena the next week, and the WWE champion, Alberto Del Rio, was beaten clean by Big Show on Raw and the announcers didn't make a big deal out of it because his title reign has been presented as a meaningless afterthought.

-McMahon also stressed the WWE Network launch, which will assuredly be a topic of discussion in the quarterly conference call to shed more light on the Network's progress.

We suggest these recent related articles...

CALDWELL'S WWE "NXT: HOUSTON" LIVE RESULTS 9/17: Complete "virtual-time" coverage of Balor, Joe, Bayley, more from debut show in Texas

CALDWELL'S LIVE REPORT - 7/12 Lone Star in Houston, Tex.: Alberto El Patron no-shows, Dreamer vs. Hoyt new main event; plus Duggan, Snitsky, Cabana vs. Mahal, Joey Ryan, Rowe vs. Hernandez, Ivellise, Catrina, Houston Carson, one title change, more

CALDWELL: A Top 10 for 10 Years - Hall of Fame, George, Sweet Tea, Studio B, Duke, Three-Pack, and you!