Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 To be fair though, he's miles behind both hogan and austin in terms of merch sales. Meltzer gave the figures the other week, Austin's best year was 13 mill, Hogans was 8 and Cena's is 5. Fuck knows what Rocks was, presumably less than Cena. Yeah, I'm not saying he's ahead of them or anything, I'm just saying you cant help but take your (red, orange or purple) hat off to it. Remember the days post-Attitude era and pre-Cena era? Where only the Rock, Austin and Hogan actually sold merch when they brought them in for the odd PPV? I remember the WM19 buyrate was really low that year. It was hard to imagine anyone capturing a kids audience at the time. Â I'd be very surprised if the Rock's best year didnt blow away Hogan and Cena's best year. I couldnt get moved for Rock merch back in 2000. Power Slam gave a figure where at the same time The Rock's t-shirt, DVD, calander and Smackdown game with him on the cover topped all the HMV charts at the same time. The Rock in 2000-2001 was huge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cokeorpepsi Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 Rock, Cena and Austin probably drew more money than Hogan. But tickets for The Beatles gigs for about 2 quid in the 60s and Westlifes are Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 Yes it does, you can adjust it for the inflation, the same way you can adjust movie box office takings, yes some marketing and so may be different, but arenas and such you could still use that date, adjusted of course. Yeah, I'm talking about the working out of what supposedly makes Austin a bigger draw and why WWE claim he's the bigger draw. When Meltzer did his working out and claimed Austin as the biggest money draw, the one thing that stood out was "Austin drew more money, Hogan was the bigger star". If you could adjust the figures, there is no fucking way Austin is close to Hogan in terms of drawing power then. Who would even argue that? You'd have to compare 18 months on top to about 15 years spanning a few different companies. I dont think wrestling journolists go that route though. They just see whats infront of them as far as figures from each era. Â One thing you cant compare is the merchandise sales. In 1984-1993, there was no internet, WWF never sold their merchandise at every major retailers. The only way you could get a Hogan or Warrior shirt is at the arena or in the WWF magazine. Its unfair to even put them together. I could get an Austin shirt from HMV in 1999. And PPV's were different as well in the 80s. Imagine if the amount of people in 1989 had access to PPV that people have today? Savage and Hogan drew something like 650,000 in the United States in 1989 for WMV. Thats a mental number if you think about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 Cena's miles ahead of Ultimate Warrior. Warrior's well-remembered but, school gyms aside, he wasn't even headlining B shows until a few months after the I-C title win, so all in all you're talking a little over three years as a headliner, including a disappointing drawing period as champion, a WrestleMania main event that did less than the previous SummerSlam, and a flop of a run in 1992. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 a WrestleMania main event that did less than the previous SummerSlam Thats because Zeus is bigger than Cena though. And Austin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 Yeah, I'm talking about the working out of what supposedly makes Austin a bigger draw and why WWE claim he's the bigger draw. When Meltzer did his working out and claimed Austin as the biggest money draw, the one thing that stood out was "Austin drew more money, Hogan was the bigger star". If you could adjust the figures, there is no fucking way Austin is close to Hogan in terms of drawing power then. Who would even argue that? You'd have to compare 18 months on top to about 15 years spanning a few different companies. I dont think wrestling journolists go that route though. They just see whats infront of them as far as figures from each era. Â Meltzer did once make a comparison based on ticket sales rather than revenue. While Hogan had the longevity, when he compared their peak periods, Austin was averaging twice the number of people per show and working twice as many dates. Â Any comparison is limited though. For example, Hogan clearly has the longevity and thus likely the bigger number overall. But if Hogan had worked Austin's schedule and done as many TV matches, he probably wouldn't have drawn as well. And Austin was much better at drawing multiple times in the same city. Hogan's presence at a show in the mid 80s could genuinely double the ordinary crowd there, but it would only work a couple of times each year before the effect faded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 Meltzer did once make a comparison based on ticket sales rather than revenue. While Hogan had the longevity, when he compared their peak periods, Austin was averaging twice the number of people per show and working twice as many dates. It was a boom period in 1998. Austin was a huge star, but Undertaker and Triple H were selling out arenas in 1998 when Austin wasnt on the shows. He was the main draw, but the WWF was so hot at the time you the New Age Outlaws were selling out arenas, when a big star wasnt advertised. Is Meltzer counting the actual arenas Austin headlined, or is he just tallying up that era. There was a period in 98 where Austin wasnt doing anything but Stone Cold Stunner run-ins. Â But if Hogan had worked Austin's schedule and done as many TV matches, he probably wouldn't have drawn as well. And Austin was much better at drawing multiple times in the same city. And if that were the case, Hogan would have had the same amount of longevity as Austin had. There's a reason for that longevity. You put Austin on TV everyweek he only lasts 18 months as the companies number one star. When Austin went down with a neck injury, the numbers never took a hit at all. Infact in 2000 without Austin on top, WWF had a bigger turnover than the previous year with The Rock on top and when he came back in late 2000 his drawing power wasnt anywhere near the level it was, save from the WrestleMania 17 PPV. Hogan had the longevity because he wasnt on television everyweek. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 That's another limitation. Any comparison you make that involves Rock and/or Austin is tainted by the fact that the two of the four biggest guys in company history (at worst) were active at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 I even said in my initial post, the eras are completely different. I just think the Hogan and Austin/Rock debate cant be put down to things like PPV numbers or television ratings, because of the difference of the two eras. Its like comparing Bruno and Austin or Bruno and Hogan. What I do believe is that Hogan was a bigger star, and far more important over all in the history of the business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tom Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 I'm probably way wide of the mark here but I would imagine that, asides from Mysterio masks, Cena carries a great deal of WWE's merchandise solely on his back and without Cena there would be a massive dent in that revenue so in terms of that, Cena is a massive part of modern-day WWE. And, if you plonked him right in the middle of the Attitude Era then he would shift a shed-load of stock there too with a bit of an edgier gimmick than his current one, or even with the same gimmick but in the mid-card, but he would still be dwarfed in that respect when compared to Austin and Rock. Hogan was the face of WWF for yonks and Austin, whilst having a much shorter run, ticked all the mainstream boxes in terms of shifting his stock, so I think Cena is always going to be a distant 3rd at best. Don't get me wrong, he doesn't always get the credit he deserves but to say he is bigger than Austin, Rock or Hogan is too much of a stretch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cokeorpepsi Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 Yeah, I'm talking about the working out of what supposedly makes Austin a bigger draw and why WWE claim he's the bigger draw. When Meltzer did his working out and claimed Austin as the biggest money draw, the one thing that stood out was "Austin drew more money, Hogan was the bigger star". If you could adjust the figures, there is no fucking way Austin is close to Hogan in terms of drawing power then. Who would even argue that? You'd have to compare 18 months on top to about 15 years spanning a few different companies. I dont think wrestling journolists go that route though. They just see whats infront of them as far as figures from each era. Â Yes but you normally compare "draw" with the company they were biggest with, no-one uses Steve Williams for WCW for example, it's just his time in WWF, and its proportional the amount of years he was there. Hogan was in WWF for a quite a while before he left that's what they'd work it out on I'd assume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PW-AJ Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 Being at the top of a pile of shit for 10 years is inferior to being at the top of a mountain of gold for 10 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 Just asked my did who doesn't give a shit about wrestling, but has occasionally been awake on earth at times over the last 25 years. Â Â He's Basically heard of Hogan, The Rock ("from them films", as he put it), Stone Cold Steve Austin (was more of a "yeah, defo rings a bell" kind of answer)... Â John Cena ("who?") Â Â Â Â Clearly my dad knows the craic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted July 28, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 To draw the 'longevity' analogy, here is the biggest star UK television has ever had. Â Â Cena is at a level above Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels (although had either been seriously active in WWE during the attitude era, it may be a different case. Michaels in particular shows the worst timing in history in terms of missing booms), but he's not at the level of Austin, Hogan or Rock. Longevity is only seriously important if it's beating other people who are at similar levels. Â I don't dislike Cena, but in some ways, he's had very fortuitous timing in terms of not having anyone who could actually challenge him in the top spot. The closest there's been until Punk's recent rise (and that remains to be seen) is...Randy Orton. Who excites, basically, nobody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RepoMan Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 If only Cena had even half the charm of Ken Barlow, he'd be doing far better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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