It’s that gravitational pull that has John Cena right behind it, and he continues to draw an enduring fan following. Every new generation of viewers that weren’t even born when he first did the ‘you can’t see me’ motion still use it as a universal sign. Cena in his prime, especially from India, still gets replayed on highlight reels that get absurd engagement numbers for old content, sometimes more than the current weekly portions. It reveals a strange truth about fandom, nostalgia doesn’t fade.
Then there’s Dwayne Johnson, or “The Rock” to most, whose WWE performances seem to be few and far between these days. Timelines are bent when they happen. You can tell enough when you see people that don’t even watch wrestling asking for clips. His fan base in Pakistan and India does not act like just a wrestling fan base. It combines with Hollywood, film and meme culture, which do not discriminate between entertainment eras. Raising an eyebrow even now is the last thing. Nobody really disagrees with that.
Every time Seth Rollins enters the picture, he shifts the temperature of the weekly product. His fans in the region are divided in an interesting way, half admire his precision in the ring, while the other half are still waiting for the moment when he comes down in pandemonium. He wrestles like a guy who is constantly changing the tempo of the match mid-phrase. One second it’s technical, one second it’s theatrical and then suddenly it’s urgent. Even if he’s not headlining, his unorthodox style still makes its way onto highlight reels.
Also, you can’t discount Randy Orton, who has a patient, not boisterous fan base. The crowd knows that what he doesn’t say is more important than what he does. He stops longer than other people do, he lets uncomfortable moments pass, and then he deliberately delays something. Orton’s timing still matters in Pakistan and India, where fans are often subjected to chopped and compressed replays. Burn low. Still good.
The Undertaker continues to resonate through the system. The Undertaker does not need to appear weekly to stay relevant in the minds of South Asian fans. His fan base is a legacy archive. Sometimes folks return to the entrances more than they do the matches, which says something about the way local wrestling culture views atmosphere as a statistic in and of itself. A 6-0 streak at WrestleMania is mentioned in discussions not about the current cards as if it continues into the future.
Then there’s Brock Lesnar, whose fanbase thrives on scarcity and shock value. He appears, wins matches in a matter of minutes and then vanishes, leaving brief viewing cycles to continue dominating highlight culture. His German suplex moves are being posted all over India and Pakistan and they are stand-alone events, not parts of matches. Four, five, sometimes seven suplexes in a row; the others are taken care of by the comment sections. Some fans find it repetitive. Others simply watch. because it still feels more like force than choreograph.
When you look at CM Punk in weekly interaction against Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins, then the real pattern becomes clear. CM Punk is back in the fan discourse. Today, South Asian viewers are more interested in following stories than in individual games, especially as streaming makes time zones easier to navigate. A SmackDown segment taped at 3am local time before work starts is still being edited into WhatsApp loops. That rhythm is what grows who.
And here is where the counterargument always comes in: that the audience is too scattered by younger talent, and that no one can have the same cohesive appeal as in earlier times. But the participation data from Pakistan and India tell another story. It doesn’t break up. It’s stratified. Roman Reigns dominates the upper strata. Shareability is at its peak in the nostalgic middle, home to Cena and The Rock.
Punk, Rhodes and Rollins occupy the narrative-driven center where weekly loyalty develops. Lesnar and Orton are getting in circulation loops for highlights. Undertaker hovers over it all, like archived gravity. Mustafa Ali breaks through, but identification drives engagement spikes.
That’s how you can map it but it looks messier to watch. Buffering means a crowd in a small Pakistani village reacts to a spear five seconds after it shows up on TV. …keeps reacting. It counts still.
And sometimes, the time immediately after a match ends when fans don’t immediately change the channel says more than the finisher, the entrance, or even the promo. They wait a moment more, as if to see if the result should have felt different. It doesn’t often. But the hesitation remains, and that says more about 2026 fans than any title reign could.