By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

WWE CFO George Barrios provided several updates on WWE business during a presentation Thursday at J.P. Morgan's 41st Annual Global Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference. (Updates on WWE Network reported separately HERE - http://bit.ly/13rLcZH.)

- The latest update on WrestleMania 29 business is that the PPV "will do over one million buys when it's all said and done." Barrios re-stressed gross revenue being "over $12 million," which includes PPV revenue and live event gate.

- When asked about UFC as competition, Barrios acknowledged the sport of MMA as a general competitor, but not a specific competitor. To stress his point, Barrios broadened out the discussion to include "cat videos" as a competitor because of WWE's focus on content.

"In the battle for time, there's millions of competitors. So when you ask me about MMA, I’m not sure, but there's a million things that I’m fighting for, it’s video game, it's cat videos, it's hundred different shows that people spending their time watching," Barrios said. "So, yeah, MMA, we don’t view them as a unique competitor, but they are entertainment and they are out there and so, but for us not something that we spend a lot of time focusing on."

- Barrios gushed about WWE's new video game deal with Take-Two to produce the "WWE 2K" franchise. Barrios noted there will be heavy emphasis on online gaming. This is based on Take-Two reporting in their most-recent financials that 27 percent of their revenue came from digital sources, whereas WWE's video games were between 5-9 percent with THQ.

"We were lagging the overall industry in the composition of our game revenue with THQ. So we liked their success - Take-Two's success in monetizing 360 degrees," Barrios said. "So, obviously, we’ve got to cut the deal and we had to get the deal that was comfortable, that we were comfortable with on the economics and we did."

- Regarding WWE Studios, Barrios repeated the company's mantra about needing to deliver at the box office to justify the existence of their movie division. This prompted Barrios to curiously say that WWE was "happy with the performance" of "No One Lives," which bombed at the box-office last weekend.

Barrios did note the unsuccessful release of "Dead Man Down" earlier this year mixed with the overwhelmingly-successfully release of "The Call" starring Halle Berry in the same release window.

- Barrios indirectly answered the "Why is Great Khali on my TV?" question. "We track ratings across the world and one of the things that you see is when Wade Barrett of English descent is a key storyline contributor, our ratings in the U.K. do better. When one of our Indian superstars is key in storyline, our ratings in India do better. So kind of managing all that is tough," Barrios said.

- Regarding the past topic of whether WWE will open internationally-based promotions, Barrios said it's something they "talk about," but are not considering.

"We don't think today it makes sense because one of the key value propositions - we believe the reason the show travels internationally - is because of catchiness of it, the Americana of it," Barrios said. "I don’t think you can just take it and say all right, let’s take 20 athletic people of X descent, put them in that country, and people are going to say it’s WWE... Everybody likes cover bands, but I think Rolling Stones would draw better in China than for Chinese guys playing Rolling Stones music. So we’re kind of the same thing. So we never say never but strategically we don’t think it works."

Barrios noted what could change their minds is if they launched a Network in a "bigger country like Mexico" and would "have a form of built-in exposure." Barrios continued that "now you can make stars because you own and have a real stake."

[ Quotes Transcribed by SeekingAlpha.com. Full Summary HERE - http://bit.ly/Z0CqpB ]

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