WWE has released their financial reports for the first quarter of 2019 and the figures are down from what they were in the same quarter last year.WWE revealed that their revenues for the quarter were at $182.4 million, which is down from $187.7 million in the same quarter in 2018.The company also reported a net loss of $8.4 million, or $0.11 per share, as compared to a profit of $14.8 million, or $0.18 per share, in the first quarter of last year. The decrease was primarily driven by a drop in live event revenue and lower merchandise sales.Commenting on the loss in a press release, Vince McMahon said the reason behind it was due to several superstars being absent from WWE's programming, especially their bigger shows such as the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania.The WWE Chairman said: "During the quarter, we continued to execute our strategy and achieved targeted financial results.

"While engagement metrics over the past two quarters were impacted by Superstar absences, we believe they will improve as our talent return and we launch our new season following a successful WrestleMania.

"We remain excited about the future, particularly with our debut on Fox in October."

Unsurprisingly, this reason hasn't gone down well with many WWE fans as fans have been urging Vince to push other superstars for many years now to avoid problems like this.

Some of the most notable superstars which didn't feature much on WWE programming during the first quarter of 2019 when compared to last year are John Cena and Roman Reigns.

Cena was absent due to commitments outside of the company, while Reigns was missing from the ring as he was battling with leukaemia.

The Big Dog returned to WWE after his cancer went into remission in February, while Cena only made sporadic appearances on Raw and SmackDown in January, as well as WrestleMania 35.

Many fans will be hoping that WWE takes these results and use them as a reason to push other superstars to avoid a financial loss like this popping up again in the future.