I don't think that there has been a legitimate draw in the company in quite some time. It's the brand and name recognition that draws over anything else.
I think guys like Cena, HHH, Batista, Hogan and Taker can draw when given an interesting angle to work with, but I don't think there are many fans who buy tickets just to see them regardless of what they are doing.
I agree with these guys.
Once you get past the elite, historic, no-doubt-about it draws that were clearly responsible for making their company a ton of money (Bruno, Andre, Hogan, Austin, Rock, Vince, etc. and to a lesser extent Flair, Bret, Michaels, HHH, Taker, Cena, etc.) and the landscape-changing angles over the course of history (the rise of Hulkamania, the nWo, Austin vs. Vince, etc.), I really don't think there's any reliable way to quantify who exactly is bringing people to the arena and who is causing people to order the PPVs. Once you get past the very top at the most profitable times, everything else is really just baseless speculation.
How many times have PPVs (and in the heyday, house shows) sold out within hours of tickets going on sale, months before the card is announced? Maybe it's been a little different since the brand extension, but the average ticket-buyer knows months ahead of time that all the main stars will be there. Who's to say people that bought tickets for Backlash 2000 six months before the event, did it just to see the Rock vs. HHH? Maybe Jericho and Big Show were their favorites to watch on TV and they didn't care much about The Rock. Who knows? Granted, that's just one hypothetical example. And yes, it's safe to say that MORE people cared about the Rock than the Big Show. But the point is, one guy is never responsible for selling EVERY ticket in the arena.
Merchandise is one fairly effective method with which to judge someone's popularity. If you sell a lot of merchandise, you're clearly popular and making the company money. It may not tell the whole story; after all, a t-shirt may sell better (or worse) if it looks cool (or hideous), regardless of whose name is on it. But I think this is at least a better way to evaluate midcarders and semi-main eventers as "draws" over something like TV ratings, buyrates, or attendance. Even so, having extensive merchandise available for so many guys is a fairly recent phenomenon.
There are certainly guys that have found a niche, in terms of drawing. For example, Rey and Eddie drew hispanic viewers. The Hardyz, the Rockers, Strike Force, or any other pretty boy tag team over the years have done their job of drawing kids and girls. The divas draw in teenage guys. RVD is an example of a guy that has a strong cult following.
But when it comes to definitely ranking people other than the all-time greats, with dollar figures or any sort of meaningful statistics, it's impossible. If there were any way to do that and such numbers actually existed, you'd be able to definitively tell me who was the bigger draw at any given time between the following: Tito Santana or Greg Valentine? Jake The Snake or Big Boss Man? Razor Ramon or the British Bulldog? Rikishi or Kane? There's no way to answer any of those questions. Any answer anyone gives will just be speculation, opinion, and personal preference, and has nothing to do with any sort of factual evidence.
For instance, I've seen someone like Kane jump onto a few top ten lists. Well, he's a fairly big name in the industry... possibly a top ten name I suppose. But how is it possible to even rank him as any sort of draw? I mean, have any of you actually ever bought a ticket, or bought a PPV, or even turned on Raw JUST to see Kane? I mean, really?
When I was a kid (early 90's), my friends and I went to a couple house shows just because there was going to be a show. We didn't know the cards at first. We just wanted to go. So, which wrestler was responsible for "drawing" us into the arena for those shows?
I'm not going to shortchange the success guys like Austin and Rock had, but I personally never bought a single PPV to see either of them. I've never liked Austin and I'm usually pretty indifferent to the Rock's matches. But when they were on top, I bought the PPV's mainly out of habit, the desire to see matches longer than three minutes, and the "what's gonna happen next" aspect. My main favorites at the time were Jericho, Angle, and Edge & Christian. And I knew I'd get quality matches from guys like Benoit, Eddie, Malenko, HHH, the Hardyz, etc. That's why I bought the shows, and watched the TV, and bought a ticket to Raw. I couldn't have been the ONLY one that felt this way. Or the only one that had been a fan of wrestling for a long time and found it exciting that it was suddenly popular again.
A lot of times, a PPV buyrate is judged solely by its main event. Sometimes, that's a perfectly reasonable way to evaulate it. Say, for a show like Canadian Stampede. But for some shows, where there are multiple main events, an unusually strong undercard, or established name value (Wrestlemania, Royal Rumble), it really doesn't make a lot of sense to just take the main event into consideration. And even when it is acceptable to judge a show just on its main event, there can be problems. Like those shows that have the Elimination Chamber. There's six guys in there. Which one of them sold the show? Did the cage sell it? A lot of times, buyrates, attendance, and money drawn can be a group effort that's not easily assigned to one or two guys.
And it really can be a group effort frequently. I'm not going to deny the success of Hogan, Austin and the Rock. The two "booms" were in the late 80s and late 90s, and they had everything to do with that. But it's interesting to note that during those two periods, the WWE's midcard and tag team division were deeper and better than they were at any other point in time. I don't think that's a coincidence. When Hogan was champion, there were legitimate semi-stars like Mr. Perfect, Jake the Snake, Boss Man, DiBiase, Beefcake, etc. The tag division was loaded with Demolition, the Hart Foundation, the Rockers, Legion of Doom, Brainbusters, etc. Austin and Rock had (not to mention each other), Angle, Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, Kane, Big Show, DX, Edge & Christian, the Hardyz, the Dudleyz, the Acolytes, Too Cool & Rikishi, etc. I'm just saying, it's not like the boom periods happened with Hogan, Rock, and Austin on a show with a few other semi-talented guys and then a bunch of scrubs. Top to bottom, the roster was loaded more than ever at those points in time, and that definitely helped, because if there was a top guy you didn't like, you had plenty of worthy alternatives to follow. And remember, there were long periods of time where Rock was gone making movies, Austin was out with an injury, Taker was out with an injury, and Foley actively retired, and business never took a significant hit. Doesn't that say something about the balance they had going at that point?
The point is, I think a lot of times the concept of "drawing" is misunderstood or misrepresented.
I agree.....I have tickets for One Night Stand in June in Jacksonville....No Card......Just because its WWE....That's that draw for me.....Ive attented 1 Clash of the Champions....1 WWE House Show..1 Superstars Taping/PPV redo...1 SmackDown!/ECW taping.....Never knowing who was gonna be there or who there were wrestling....The Company Initials got me to buy the ticket not the wrestlers on the Card...
