Who was the largest draw of all-time?

[Guest BrokenWings]

I apologize if this thread has been done before, but I've been wondering lately who the biggest draws of all-time were. I figured Hogan and Austin are the top two, but their places are seemingly a matter of opinion, as it changes by whom you talk to.

 

Other than that, who would round out the top five? Flair? Goldberg? Or someone else I'm (most likely obviously) forgetting?

 

Enlighten me.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

Top 5

 

Austin

Hogan

The Rock

Andre The Giant

Flair

[MikeJordan23 0]

Austin is the biggest drawing wrestler ever.

 

Austin vs. The Rock at WM is the biggest draw in wrestling history for one match. They made the WWE 45 Million plus for one match.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Hogan is the biggest draw ever obviously. Show me someone who sold out a 70,000 seat House Show (the Big Event vs. Paul Orndorff, which wasn't even advertised on T.V.) and a 93,000 sell out for WM III. Let's not forget the millions and millions of merchandise he's sold over the last 20+ years, House Show sell-outs for the better part of the 80's, and one of the major responsibilities for WCW being a competition in 1996 with the nWo...

 

Hogan by a hundred thousand miles. No one can even come close.

 

Austin was a draw from 1997-1999.

 

Hogan was a draw from 1981-1998.

 

It shouldn't even be considered to challenge it.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Just for the record, Hogan v Orndorff drew around 61,000, and WM III drew around 78,000. The 93,000 number is a myth. Hogan's house show record in the 80's also gets overblown to a degree. Yeah, he drew some great numbers, but in a fair few places, he wasn't this super draw that some people claim. Not to mention that, for the most part, while the first match in the Hogan v ME Heel program drew well, the second and/or third matches didn't draw as good.

[Guest momoracci]

93,000 sell out for WM III

 

That's WWF propaganda. Meltzer's reported for years that the actual attendance, according to Zane Bresloff (who handled the local promotion of the event), was 78,000.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

While we're throwing numbers around, the largest live gate in wrestling history was around $7m, and a shiny penny to the first person to tell me what event drew that gate.

[bob_barron 0]

The shows in Korea from 1995?

[{''({o..o})''} 0]

I want to say it's something El Santo, retirement match maybe, probably way off.

[Guest momoracci]

While we're throwing numbers around, the largest live gate in wrestling history was around $7m, and a shiny penny to the first person to tell me what event drew that gate.

 

Funny; I just so happened to skim through an old Wrestling Observer earlier today and wouldn't you know it, it was the issue that covered Inoki's retirement show. Another crazy figure: it did $2.6 million in merch...

[Guest LooneyTune]

Just for the record, Hogan v Orndorff drew around 61,000, and WM III drew around 78,000. The 93,000 number is a myth. Hogan's house show record in the 80's also gets overblown to a degree. Yeah, he drew some great numbers, but in a fair few places, he wasn't this super draw that some people claim. Not to mention that, for the most part, while the first match in the Hogan v ME Heel program drew well, the second and/or third matches didn't draw as good.

And selling 61,000 seats for a House Show isn't impressive anyway? I still say WM III was 93,000+. It certainly looked like it, and either way, it's a an awesome attendance figure.

 

I also neglected to say the 67,000+ at Torontos Skydome for WM VI that featured Hogan main eventing, and a proven non-Draw, the Ultimate Warrior (considering he tanked as World Champion, I use the term non-draw)

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

While we're throwing numbers around, the largest live gate in wrestling history was around $7m, and a shiny penny to the first person to tell me what event drew that gate.

 

Funny; I just so happened to skim through an old Wrestling Observer earlier today and wouldn't you know it, it was the issue that covered Inoki's retirement show. Another crazy figure: it did $2.6 million in merch...

And here is your shiny penny:

 

 

And LT, yeah, those numbers are impressive, I just think the proper facts should be known if you're going to use them to make your point.

[{''({o..o})''} 0]

There's really no more for debate there, it's not the 93,000.

EDIT: Dang, wrong national hero.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Fine, 78,000 for WM III...although I still personally will say 93,000 because my mind has bene poisoned by McMahons thinking.

[The Dames 0]

Hogan is the biggest draw ever obviously. Show me someone who sold out a 70,000 seat House Show (the Big Event vs. Paul Orndorff, which wasn't even advertised on T.V.) and a 93,000 sell out for WM III. Let's not forget the millions and millions of merchandise he's sold over the last 20+ years, House Show sell-outs for the better part of the 80's, and one of the major responsibilities for WCW being a competition in 1996 with the nWo...

 

Hogan by a hundred thousand miles. No one can even come close.

 

Austin was a draw from 1997-1999.

 

Hogan was a draw from 1981-1998.

 

It shouldn't even be considered to challenge it.

In terms of the WWE: Due to the increased cable exposure, 12 month PPV era & two shows a week, Austin quickly dominated Hogan as WWE's all time box office draw. His merchandise outsold Hogans and Austin drew higher ratings for a much more consistent basis.

 

Think about it. Drawing 4 PPV's a year that at drew about 70,000 as compared to 12 PPV's a year at 35,000 an arena plus great house show attendance.

 

Do the math. Austin did more than Hogan in a shorter period of time.

 

Dames

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

I'm not saying he's the best of all time, but I think there needs to be a Bruno Sammartino reference here. I believe he holds the record for all time sell outs of MSG, plus there was a MAJOR reason why they kept the title on him for all those years.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Eh...I got into this same kind of argument on KFM, but forgot to mention Bruno being a good candidate.

 

Since Austin accomplished in 2 years as much as Hogan did in almost 20, I guess it's a fair game again. And I probably spell accomplished wrong.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I believe he holds the record for all time sell outs of MSG.

I'm pretty sure Billy Graham holds that record. I was reading the peices Metlzer did on the W/WWF Title, and he mentioned how Graham holds the record for MSG sell-outs while in the main event. Apparently, Rock was getting close, but because of his career, never quite made it. I think Graham's record is 19 sellouts out of 20 main events.

[Kardo 0]

Honky Tonk Man was also a big draw believe it or not.

[hbkhhhmark4life 0]

what about koko b..... just kidding, id say in his own right, bret hart could be up there and dx (HBK and HHH) were a draw as well

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I don't know if HBK even drew one MSG sell-out during his run as WWF Champion. I know he headlined some really poor MSG crowds during his big run, like in the 7,000 range.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

For 1996, I did some checking, and HBK drew one sellout at MSG, for his Cage match with Diesel on May 19th 1996.

 

On September 29th of that year, with Michaels and Undertaker taking on Mankind and Goldust in the main event, they drew a crowd of around 7,000, but the actual paid attendance was 3,917. I don't know for sure, but I think that may be the lowest ever gate at MSG.

 

Just to add, HBK and Diesel v Bret Hart and Undertaker also sold out MSG on March 17th of that year, in the first MSG house show sellout since at least the mid-80's.

[Guest fanofcoils]

Did Hogan sell out every arena from Wrestlemania I to Wrestlemania II?

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Did Hogan sell out every arena in 1985?

I'm sure he had a really good record, but I highly doubt he sold out every arena he wrestled in in 1985.

[Guest LooneyTune]

He may not have sold out EVERY arena, but everyone sure as heck made plenty of money working shows he did. Paul Orndorff, when working a program with Hulk, was making thousands of dollars a night (I don't know the exact number, but it had to be a shitload of dough to fuck yourself up the way he did).

 

I know the midcarders didn't make that much (or probably not close to what Orndorff was doing), but they got some good payoffs per night with Hogan headlining.

 

Bret & Michaels aren't even close to top draws. I like Bret and all, but he wasn't close to being a great draw. Michaels is in the same boat. They were headliners in the WWF's dark periods (1993-1996).

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I think Orndorff averaged around $30,000 a week during his program with Hogan.

[Guest LooneyTune]

$30,000 a week...not bad considering average people make that anywhere between 6 months to a year, depending on what part of the "class" you are.. I was thinking around 6-7 thousand a night, so I was pretty close. No wonder he refused surgery.

[Sass 0]

Steve Austin

Hulk Hogan

Andre the Giant

 

These 3 guys were the highest paid wrestlers in history for a reason.

 

Other guys who were stand-out draws:

 

Jim Londos

Billy Longson

Primo Carnera

Gorgeous George

Lou Thesz

Buddy Rogers

Antonio Rocca

Bruno Sammartino

Freddie Blassie

The Destroyer

Rikidozan

Antonio Inoki

Giant Baba

Kintaro Oki

Riki Choshu

Shinya Hashimoto

Akira Maeda

Nobuhiko Takada

Pedro Morales

Carlos Colon

El Santo

Blue Demon

Mil Mascaras

Bob Backlund

[therealworldschampion 0]

Didn't that match that Flair had in North Korea have like 150,000 people in attendance?

[Guest LooneyTune]

Was it an out-doors event? I honestly don't remember since I'm not good with out of the United States figures.