Face of the Franchise

[Papacita 0]

I didn't like the McMahon angle at all, even though it got people talking. I haven't seen any of the other stuff, so I can't comment.

[The Truthiness 0]

You should track down the Batista/Taker feud it was awesome, maybe the best face vs. face feud I've ever seen.

[cabbageboy 0]

The answer to this question is easily, without a doubt, Hogan. Bruno was on top back when the WWWF was a glorified regional promotion and few people outside the northeast cared. Guys like Austin, Rock, HHH blur together in the same era as roughly on the same level. Taker has been around forever but isn't really THE guy. Cena is just too disliked by a lot of fans to ever really be in this discussion, and frankly he simply hasn't drawn the kind of money or ratings to warrant mention in this sort of all time discussion.

 

I actually take issue somewhat with the idea of Raw being awful in 2002. It certainly was at various points in 2002, like when Flair kept booking Austin/Bradshaw vs. the NWO every week for a month. Or the Katie Vick trash. But you still had unreal matches like the TLC from Oct. 02 that is seriously one of the best matches I've ever seen. 2003 however? I won't defend Raw during that era, nor will I defend Smackdown during the 2nd half of 2004.

 

But the notion that WWE is at its peak of quality right now? Laughable. It's not at its nadir either, since I consider that roughly 1995-96. Raw's peak was during the 1997-01 period, especially the post WM stuff from 1998. In fact April-September 1998 Raw is very likely the best week to week wrestling I've ever seen. I almost couldn't wait for the next week to arrive, which is all the more amazing since I wouldn't consider any of the top guys of that era among my favorite wrestlers of all time.

[The Truthiness 0]

Cena is just too disliked by a lot of fans to ever really be in this discussion, and frankly he simply hasn't drawn the kind of money or ratings to warrant mention in this sort of all time discussion.

 

The Rock and Hogan have both been booed out of buildings, when they was supposed to be cheered

 

 

While Cena was on top, the WWE had it's most profitable year ever in 2007, I don't want to hear that "Well, uh, WWE has an awesome business model, Wrestling had nothing to do with it" bullshit. The fact it is WWE is an wrestling company, that is what they're known for, the company made almost half a billion dollars while Cena was on top. That is the facts, iirc he headlined the most profitable mania ever.

 

He shouldn't be mentioned in the same league as The Rock, Hogan, and Stone Cold, but he does have the chance to one day be on that level.

[Wally Balls 0]

Truth, no need to appologize. It's all good.

 

I can't understand how more people aren't behind Austin as the face of the franchise. He drew money and ratings that will probably never be rivaled. Not to mention, Austin pretty much brought the WWF into the mainstream. I remember back when I was in 6th or 7th grade, everyone who knew about Austin and Rock and everyone talked about Raw and Smackdown. Today, the WWE has faded away and has lost a lot of the viewers that Rock and Austin have brought in. The ratings alone are enough to defend that. If you're losing ratings, then you're losing viewers, so it's hard to say that ratings aren't important.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Truth, no need to appologize. It's all good.

 

I can't understand how more people aren't behind Austin as the face of the franchise. He drew money and ratings that will probably never be rivaled. Not to mention, Austin pretty much brought the WWF into the mainstream. I remember back when I was in 6th or 7th grade, everyone who knew about Austin and Rock and everyone talked about Raw and Smackdown. Today, the WWE has faded away and has lost a lot of the viewers that Rock and Austin have brought in. The ratings alone are enough to defend that. If you're losing ratings, then you're losing viewers, so it's hard to say that ratings aren't important.

 

Because adjusted for inflation, I'm sure Hogan pretty much drew more money and ratings that "will probably never be rivaled" than Austin. Not to mention he has been on top of WWF for 8 years (in his first run), Austin has only for 2 to 4 years.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Truth, no need to appologize. It's all good.

 

I can't understand how more people aren't behind Austin as the face of the franchise. He drew money and ratings that will probably never be rivaled. Not to mention, Austin pretty much brought the WWF into the mainstream. I remember back when I was in 6th or 7th grade, everyone who knew about Austin and Rock and everyone talked about Raw and Smackdown. Today, the WWE has faded away and has lost a lot of the viewers that Rock and Austin have brought in. The ratings alone are enough to defend that. If you're losing ratings, then you're losing viewers, so it's hard to say that ratings aren't important.

 

Because adjusted for inflation, I'm sure Hogan pretty much drew more money and ratings that "will probably never be rivaled" than Austin. Not to mention he has been on top of WWF for 8 years (in his first run), Austin has only for 2 to 4 years.

I don't know how you can adjust ratings for inflation, but I can help with adjusting the money via this handy site, The Inflation Calculator.

 

I believe WWF's best year under Hogan saw them generate $150m. If we assume that year to be 1988, then $150m adjusted for inflation would be worth, in 2007, $85,540,108.99. If you take the peak Hogan year to be 1987 or 1989, the money is still in that $85m ballpark.

 

I don't remember how much WWF made in Austin's peak year, but if we assume that figure to be $300m (based roughly on the historical financial chart you see on WWE's corporate website) and Austin's peak year to be 1999, then $300m in 1999, adjusted for inflation, would be worth $243,398,388.27 in 2007.

 

Reading the historical financial chart (pdf) on WWE's corporate website, from 2002-2006, the revenue WWE made from live events, TV, etc, has slowly gone down. Revenue from merchandise was at it's highest in the 2007 financial year.

 

This was taken from the Observer's reporting on WWE's profits for 2007:

 

2007 Revenue- $485,655,000

2007 Profit- $52,137,000

Cash on balance sheets at year end- 276.1 million (cash on hand)

 

233 shows (house & ppv) drawing 1,537,800 fans or 6,600 average per event.

 

Merchandise at live shows was 19.1 million. Average per person on domestic only shows was $10.75 per person. No word on international per person average.

 

USA contract for RAW is $700,000 per week in rights fee. No word on the new MY Network deal for Smackdown or ECW on Sci Fi.

 

Movies lost them just under 15 million all due to the Condemned which lost over 15 million while Kane's See No Evil and Cenas the Marine ended up making modest profits. Thus, the movie deal just isn't worth doing unless its another low budget vehicle for John Cena to keep him popular.

 

Gross profits (before expenses and taxes) by percentage come from the following):

Live event ticket sales 13.5%

Merchandise at live shows 3.7%

PPV worldwide 24.5%

24/7 channel 1.4%

Tv advertising/sponsors 3%

Producing tv 12.6%

Licensing 17% **

Magazine publishing 2.5%

DVD 15.5%

Internet ads /ATT wireless 4.1%

Internet merchandise 2.4%

 

Licensing revenuus is further broken down as 30.4% toy sales, 38.9% videogame sales, 20% clothing and novelties. Toys are mostly Cena and Rey Mysterio showing their value as this is alot of money. The videogames do very well also.

 

Company Expenses:

$2,906,700 average cost per ppv but Wrestlemania greatly skews this as it has huge expenses and the other 2 big ppvs have big expenses also.

$700,000 cost per tv shoot (filming RAW, Smackdown, ECW which is all done on 1 shoot per week). Since just the RAW rights fee from USA is 700k in revenue this means any revenue from Smackdown and ECW is profit. One thing causing this number to be artificially high is the high cost of filming tv internationally. If they were only doing it domestically it would be lower than 700k per show.

 

570 full time employes and 150 wrestlers under contract as independent contractors.

 

 

[Boxer 0]

Hogan, if you look at him up to 1993 and let's say he did nothing after that, and Austin still blew up, it would be Austin.

 

But, you can't deny what Hogan did with the nWo, so that just cemented him on top as the man, all-time in this business.

[Promoter 0]

I haven't made a post in a long ass time on here. The face of the wwf/e is HULK HOGAN. Hulkamania=WrestleMania. Take that little equation in for a moment. I see all these numbers and so on, but people are failing to take in these things the wwf had happen in Hogan's era in the wwf.

 

NO PPV SHOWS IN THE WWF WITHOUT HULK HOGAN!!! You think the wwf back in the 80's would have drawn as big without Hulk Hogan in the early years? There's a reason why Vince sought the guy from the NWA and prevented him from showing up at the Starrcade event for the NWA. Hogan was big before the Sheik win because of being seen in the Rocky movie. That was the catalyst for Vince seeing the mainstream potential in Hogan.

 

People are forgetting wrestling WAS NOT on cable tv such as NBC. The wwf had a show that replaced the ever popular Saturday Night Live with SNME in the 80's. Hogan was apart of the two biggest crowds in the 80's. The Big Event with Paul Orndorff and WM 3. Hogan making it on Sports Illustrated for the popularity the business was gaining through him. The Hogan steroid scandle almost single-handily crushed the wwf in 1992(Flair drew horrible numbers for house shows as champion although it's not debatable at all that Flair is one of the greatest champions*some of that was due to Hogan and the steroid allegations). His popularity was so important that anything negative associated with him hurt the business.

 

Then Vince tries to move on with a "new generation" with those new generation commercials promoting Hart, Diesel, and so on because Vince knew damn well Hogan in wcw was trouble for his company. Then they went with the Huckster and Nacho skits. Now if Hogan was not STILL the face of the company why would Vince try to denigrate Hulk Hogan? The fans saw Hogan in wcw as more as Hogan deflecting from wwf more than anything else. Just as the steroid scandal the negative of Hogan leaving had a bad impact on the wwf(FACE OF THE WWF).

 

Hogan turns heel and wcw heats up and the wwf plays catch up. Piper who was apart of one of Hogan's biggest feuds of the 80's jumps ship to wcw and they re-enact WM 1 and WCW DESTROYS RAW in the ratings one week in December so much that RAW got a 1.9 rating if I recall correctly. Hogan's ANTI-establishment of the "new world order" taking over wcw was before Austin/Mcmahon really hit it's driving point around September 1997 at MSG and then the Montreal screwjob.

 

Hogan RETURNS against the HIGHLY popular and one of the MOST popular wrestlers of all-time in The Rock and he gets CHEERED. Austin and Hogan never have a match and I wonder why? Austin aint stupid! HOGAN IS THE FACE!! Too much back story to show it. A lot of things helped wwf come back with those strong numbers in the 1997-2001 range and yes Austin was the front-liner, but let's not forget Hogan and the nwo almost put Vince out of business.

 

As for the wwe today. It doesn't suck, but it's AVERAGE AS HELL. I think it has LOST A LOT OF STEAM since WM 23 imo.

[The Truthiness 0]

I don't buy in to the whole "Austin is scared that he'll get out popped by Hogan" line of thinking. I think Austin just doesn't like Hogan, and doesn't want to work with him.

[Promoter 0]

Funny, I never said anything about Austin being afraid of being out-popped by Hogan. I said Austin aint stupid like The Rock in having a match where Hogan may work the crowd to make it rather disputable that Austin is head and shoulders above Hogan for those who say he is the greatest star ever(Ric Flair I'm looking at you). Without having a match we can have the debate. It's similar to what fans would be saying about Rock being more popular than Hogan, but then that can't be truly argued as all we got to do is pop in Hogan and Rock from WM 18. There's empirical evidence that Hogan RETURNED in the "new generation" of the "attitude era" and hung with the top dogs who made Vince all that damn money. It is rather obvious that a Hogan/Austin match would not be all Austin in terms of fan support. Any one who says otherwise is just Hogan hating imo. That is what Austin avoided along with the politics Hogan would bring to the match. We saw what happened with HBK The Master Politician and his match/feud with Hogan. Austin remembered his wcw days all too well to fall for the trap in Vince's company.

[The Truthiness 0]

It's easy for the fans to go for Hogan when he went against Rock and Michaels. Those guys were wrestling full time schedules, Hogan was a fresh face, and wrestling fans tend to cheer Hogan when he pops up out of the blue. That won't work with Austin/Hogan, since the fans haven't seen Austin much either. I'm willing to bet if both guys came out of retirement for match at mania, Austin might just get a better reaction from the fans then Hogan, not to mention Austin would make Hogan look kind of silly in the promo's leading up to the match.

[Promoter 0]

I see your viewpoint about Hogan against Michaels and Rock being the "fresher" wrestler in wwe, but I disagree for the simple fact that it was the fresh match in itself that made people care. Rock faced everyone by the time Hogan faced him, so it also helped Rock going against someone like Hogan. The same with Hogan. He ran out of gas in wcw in his last days with his "Stone Cold" Hogan character. If you look at it from an even perspective Hogan had the crowd more regardless. It was a mainstream match that people wanted to see between the legendary Hogan and the ever popular Rock. It rejuvenates both wrestlers fans passions.

 

I agree right now Hogan and Austin would favour Austin though. ESPECIALLY if they do worked shoot promos. I mean the material is too easy for Austin Then it's in his homestate, but then again fans are strange and we saw what happened at WM 18(not likely to happen though)

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Truth, no need to appologize. It's all good.

 

I can't understand how more people aren't behind Austin as the face of the franchise. He drew money and ratings that will probably never be rivaled. Not to mention, Austin pretty much brought the WWF into the mainstream. I remember back when I was in 6th or 7th grade, everyone who knew about Austin and Rock and everyone talked about Raw and Smackdown. Today, the WWE has faded away and has lost a lot of the viewers that Rock and Austin have brought in. The ratings alone are enough to defend that. If you're losing ratings, then you're losing viewers, so it's hard to say that ratings aren't important.

 

Because adjusted for inflation, I'm sure Hogan pretty much drew more money and ratings that "will probably never be rivaled" than Austin. Not to mention he has been on top of WWF for 8 years (in his first run), Austin has only for 2 to 4 years.

I don't know how you can adjust ratings for inflation, but I can help with adjusting the money via this handy site, The Inflation Calculator.

 

 

 

Obviously with ratings, you adjust it for how many homes get the channel, and how many people are watching TV in general. The fact that Hogan was drawing monster ratings for WWF (in an admittedly less crowded market) whereas Austin was drawing monster ratings adjusted for the time. Whatever term you'd call it to explain why a 15.0 rating in 1988 is not as impressive as a 15.0 rating in say, 1998.

[Lazarus 0]

Truth, no need to appologize. It's all good.

 

I can't understand how more people aren't behind Austin as the face of the franchise. He drew money and ratings that will probably never be rivaled. Not to mention, Austin pretty much brought the WWF into the mainstream. I remember back when I was in 6th or 7th grade, everyone who knew about Austin and Rock and everyone talked about Raw and Smackdown. Today, the WWE has faded away and has lost a lot of the viewers that Rock and Austin have brought in. The ratings alone are enough to defend that. If you're losing ratings, then you're losing viewers, so it's hard to say that ratings aren't important.

 

Because adjusted for inflation, I'm sure Hogan pretty much drew more money and ratings that "will probably never be rivaled" than Austin. Not to mention he has been on top of WWF for 8 years (in his first run), Austin has only for 2 to 4 years.

I don't know how you can adjust ratings for inflation, but I can help with adjusting the money via this handy site, The Inflation Calculator.

 

 

 

Obviously with ratings, you adjust it for how many homes get the channel, and how many people are watching TV in general. The fact that Hogan was drawing monster ratings for WWF (in an admittedly less crowded market) whereas Austin was drawing monster ratings adjusted for the time. Whatever term you'd call it to explain why a 15.0 rating in 1988 is not as impressive as a 15.0 rating in say, 1998.

 

The other thing that needs to be considered is what kind of shows were available to watch. Back in Hogan's era we had SNME every now and then and weekly "Superstars of Wrestling". There was nowhere near the hype or quality in those old shows as the ones we get today because now, even with all the complaints, we get real matches between real stars. Back then it was just a star squashing a jobber, which I don't think can really compete with a show that will consistently match the stars up against each other.

[Diamonddust 0]

Truth, no need to appologize. It's all good.

 

I can't understand how more people aren't behind Austin as the face of the franchise. He drew money and ratings that will probably never be rivaled. Not to mention, Austin pretty much brought the WWF into the mainstream. I remember back when I was in 6th or 7th grade, everyone who knew about Austin and Rock and everyone talked about Raw and Smackdown. Today, the WWE has faded away and has lost a lot of the viewers that Rock and Austin have brought in. The ratings alone are enough to defend that. If you're losing ratings, then you're losing viewers, so it's hard to say that ratings aren't important.

 

Because adjusted for inflation, I'm sure Hogan pretty much drew more money and ratings that "will probably never be rivaled" than Austin. Not to mention he has been on top of WWF for 8 years (in his first run), Austin has only for 2 to 4 years.

I don't know how you can adjust ratings for inflation, but I can help with adjusting the money via this handy site, The Inflation Calculator.

 

 

 

Obviously with ratings, you adjust it for how many homes get the channel, and how many people are watching TV in general. The fact that Hogan was drawing monster ratings for WWF (in an admittedly less crowded market) whereas Austin was drawing monster ratings adjusted for the time. Whatever term you'd call it to explain why a 15.0 rating in 1988 is not as impressive as a 15.0 rating in say, 1998.

 

The other thing that needs to be considered is what kind of shows were available to watch. Back in Hogan's era we had SNME every now and then and weekly "Superstars of Wrestling". There was nowhere near the hype or quality in those old shows as the ones we get today because now, even with all the complaints, we get real matches between real stars. Back then it was just a star squashing a jobber, which I don't think can really compete with a show that will consistently match the stars up against each other.

 

The business model was different back then. If you wanted to see a star battle another star, you paid money to go to a house show or you waited until SNME or The Main Event was broadcast (Considering Andre the Giant/Hogan on The Main Event is still the most watched wrestling match in history). They were not about to give away top tier matches to television that was in syndication or on cable when it was still in its relative infancy.

 

Back in the day, a loss on television could mean death for a career. Without a guaranteed contract, they could quickly do away with you after jobbing you out just once, thus killing any momentum you might have been able to use in another promotion.

[tobin 0]

Just adding to the Hogan/Austin debate - the way I’ve seen is summarised best is that there are many people who know Hogan and don’t know Austin, but there are no people who know Austin and don’t know Hogan. I agree with this, and I think the mainstream majority still visualises Hogan as the face behind the initials “WWF” or “WWE”. Whether they have a positive or negative opinion of Hogan is a totally different matter.

[TheFranchise 0]

I think the clue is in the title.

 

Face of the Franchise.

 

If you showed ANYBODY a photo of Hulk Hogan, they'd almost respond with 'WWF'!

 

If you showed ANYBODY a photo of Steve Austin, well, not as many would even know who he was.

 

This is Hulk Hogan.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

There are a couple problems with calling Steve Austin the face of the franchise. While he definitely had the biggest peak of any of the wrestlers we are discussing, there are essentially two issues that reflect negatively in comparison with someone like Hogan.

 

1. Longevity - Steve Austin had a run that only lasted about 18 months. His run started with the Mania win over Michaels and more or less ended at Survivor Series '99. The fact that business went up in 2000 with Rock and Triple H on top and tanked when he returned in 2001 is telling as well.

 

2. Contemporaries - While Austin was the definitive top guy in WWF, the NWO, DX, Goldberg and Vince McMahon were all huge in their own right during his run. The fact that Austin never really drew outside of his feud with Vince is a major negative. While Hogan was the key ingredient to success in the eighties, the formula included a lot of different things during the Monday night wars.

[bob_barron 0]

1. Longevity - Steve Austin had a run that only lasted about 18 months. His run started with the Mania win over Michaels and more or less ended at Survivor Series '99. The fact that business went up in 2000 with Rock and Triple H on top and tanked when he returned in 2001 is telling as well.

 

That's not really true, as Austin returned in 2000. The show where he returned, Unforgiven, drew a monster buyrate. Business didn't start to go down until after he turned heel in April of 01, which was months after he returned.

 

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

1. Longevity - Steve Austin had a run that only lasted about 18 months. His run started with the Mania win over Michaels and more or less ended at Survivor Series '99. The fact that business went up in 2000 with Rock and Triple H on top and tanked when he returned in 2001 is telling as well.

 

That's not really true, as Austin returned in 2000. The show where he returned, Unforgiven, drew a monster buyrate. Business didn't start to go down until after he turned heel in April of 01, which was months after he returned.

 

Okay, so tack on another six months. Still doesn't hold up that well against Hogan's run of 8 years (or even Sammartino's insanely long run).

 

 

[bob_barron 0]

Well they turned their #1 face heel and aligned him with the one man everyone had been conditioned to know that he hated with a passion.

 

Of course he wasn't going to draw well.

 

And you can't compare Sammartino's run in the 60s to Austin in the late 90s.

 

For the record, Hogan is the face of the WWF. He's still a big name in the mainstream media, while no one cares about Austin

[Papacita 0]

There are a couple problems with calling Steve Austin the face of the franchise. While he definitely had the biggest peak of any of the wrestlers we are discussing, there are essentially two issues that reflect negatively in comparison with someone like Hogan.

 

1. Longevity - Steve Austin had a run that only lasted about 18 months. His run started with the Mania win over Michaels and more or less ended at Survivor Series '99. The fact that business went up in 2000 with Rock and Triple H on top and tanked when he returned in 2001 is telling as well.

 

2. Contemporaries - While Austin was the definitive top guy in WWF, the NWO, DX, Goldberg and Vince McMahon were all huge in their own right during his run. The fact that Austin never really drew outside of his feud with Vince is a major negative. While Hogan was the key ingredient to success in the eighties, the formula included a lot of different things during the Monday night wars.

 

I agree Hogan is the man, but let's try not to forget that without Austin, there is no 2000 WWF. Part of the reason that 2000 was so profitable was due to increased public visibility and avenues opened as a direct result of the popularity gains in 98-99. Taking nothing away from the Rock and others, but it's easy to reach those heights once the plane is already built; Austin made them profitable when a lot of people thought they were on their last leg. The very fact that the 2001 downturn was DIRECT BACKLASH of them changing Austin's character speaks volumes for the man's importance.

 

And Roddy Piper, Randy Savage and even Ultimate Warrior weren't exactly chopped liver in 80's and early 90's.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

In a post Benoit world, ratings don't mean much.

 

What does this even mean?

[The Truthiness 0]

In a post Benoit world, ratings don't mean much.

 

What does this even mean?

 

In a post Benoit world, you should understand what that means.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

In a post Benoit world, ratings don't mean much.

 

What does this even mean?

 

In a post Benoit world, you should understand what that means.

I still don't have a clue what you are talking about. Please enlighten me.

[The Truthiness 0]

It's a joke Cheech.`

 

[Promoter 0]

There are a couple problems with calling Steve Austin the face of the franchise. While he definitely had the biggest peak of any of the wrestlers we are discussing, there are essentially two issues that reflect negatively in comparison with someone like Hogan.

 

1. Longevity - Steve Austin had a run that only lasted about 18 months. His run started with the Mania win over Michaels and more or less ended at Survivor Series '99. The fact that business went up in 2000 with Rock and Triple H on top and tanked when he returned in 2001 is telling as well.

 

2. Contemporaries - While Austin was the definitive top guy in WWF, the NWO, DX, Goldberg and Vince McMahon were all huge in their own right during his run. The fact that Austin never really drew outside of his feud with Vince is a major negative. While Hogan was the key ingredient to success in the eighties, the formula included a lot of different things during the Monday night wars.

 

I agree Hogan is the man, but let's try not to forget that without Austin, there is no 2000 WWF. Part of the reason that 2000 was so profitable was due to increased public visibility and avenues opened as a direct result of the popularity gains in 98-99. Taking nothing away from the Rock and others, but it's easy to reach those heights once the plane is already built; Austin made them profitable when a lot of people thought they were on their last leg. The very fact that the 2001 downturn was DIRECT BACKLASH of them changing Austin's character speaks volumes for the man's importance.

 

And Roddy Piper, Randy Savage and even Ultimate Warrior weren't exactly chopped liver in 80's and early 90's.

 

I agree. Austin/Mcmahon was the glue to the whole comeback by the wwf, but let's not forget the whole change in direction of how they did the shows had plenty to do with it as well. WCW laid some of the blueprint hate to say. Bischoff played the heel boss first(in that he was also the real boss). However, how much did Bret Hart and the Montreal screwjob give the wwf the boost it was looking for. Let's be honest the wwf was throwing everything at the wall hoping for something to stick and was failing miserably against the NWO juggernaut. The Vince screwjob was a blessing in disguise. The wwf also started to give more title changes in 1999 then they did for its entire years combined for title changes which sparked more fans to tune in. That couldn't go on for too long for obvious burn out problems.

 

I also think Austin's rise actually started in 1996 when he was goading Bret Hart to return. That's where his "bottom line" lingo started and got a boost with the KOR promo. 2001 the wwf just made a bad call with turning Austin heel at the wrong time. WCW was gone. Rock leaves for the movies. Hogan was nowhere to be seen. Austin sides with Mcmahon and who was the audience suppose to get behind as before? Then the end of the monday night war also happened. It was a bad time for the move although I liked the idea(the execution wasn't that good either). This is just another reason Hogan should get the face of wrestling moniker is that it was his heel turn that triggered the masses to look at wrestling again.

[Lazarus 0]

Truth, no need to appologize. It's all good.

 

I can't understand how more people aren't behind Austin as the face of the franchise. He drew money and ratings that will probably never be rivaled. Not to mention, Austin pretty much brought the WWF into the mainstream. I remember back when I was in 6th or 7th grade, everyone who knew about Austin and Rock and everyone talked about Raw and Smackdown. Today, the WWE has faded away and has lost a lot of the viewers that Rock and Austin have brought in. The ratings alone are enough to defend that. If you're losing ratings, then you're losing viewers, so it's hard to say that ratings aren't important.

 

Because adjusted for inflation, I'm sure Hogan pretty much drew more money and ratings that "will probably never be rivaled" than Austin. Not to mention he has been on top of WWF for 8 years (in his first run), Austin has only for 2 to 4 years.

I don't know how you can adjust ratings for inflation, but I can help with adjusting the money via this handy site, The Inflation Calculator.

 

 

 

Obviously with ratings, you adjust it for how many homes get the channel, and how many people are watching TV in general. The fact that Hogan was drawing monster ratings for WWF (in an admittedly less crowded market) whereas Austin was drawing monster ratings adjusted for the time. Whatever term you'd call it to explain why a 15.0 rating in 1988 is not as impressive as a 15.0 rating in say, 1998.

 

The other thing that needs to be considered is what kind of shows were available to watch. Back in Hogan's era we had SNME every now and then and weekly "Superstars of Wrestling". There was nowhere near the hype or quality in those old shows as the ones we get today because now, even with all the complaints, we get real matches between real stars. Back then it was just a star squashing a jobber, which I don't think can really compete with a show that will consistently match the stars up against each other.

 

The business model was different back then. If you wanted to see a star battle another star, you paid money to go to a house show or you waited until SNME or The Main Event was broadcast (Considering Andre the Giant/Hogan on The Main Event is still the most watched wrestling match in history). They were not about to give away top tier matches to television that was in syndication or on cable when it was still in its relative infancy.

 

Back in the day, a loss on television could mean death for a career. Without a guaranteed contract, they could quickly do away with you after jobbing you out just once, thus killing any momentum you might have been able to use in another promotion.

 

I am not saying it is the same business model. I am saying that you need to consider what Hogan and Austin were workign with when they got the ratings that they did. It's a lot harder to pull of a high rating when literally all you have to work with squashing jobbers left, right and center. Yes, that is how the WWF chose to do things at the time, and that is precisely why people shouldn't try to do a one to one comparison, because back then the TV ratings weren't considered anywhere near as important as they are now.

 

The other thing that people need to consider when comparing Austin and Hogan is where the business was when they started. Austin had huge huge highs, but he came in at a time when the industry had already massively benefitted from Hogan. Hogan took wrestling from being a backwoods embarassment and put it into the mainstream spotlight. When Austin had his big run, he was benefitting from all the work that Hogan had done to put the WWF on the map, so he was starting at a much higher point than Hogan did. He was also in an era where wrestling in general was getting a lot more attention, thanks to a number of things such as DX, the Rock and what Hogan and the NWO were doing at WCW.

 

When it comes to determining who the face of the franchise is, I think the answer is whoever shows up most if you ask 100 random people on the street to name a single wrestler. I'd bet good money that the name that comes up most will be Hogan, with guys like Austin and the Rock falling pretty far behind.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

In a post Benoit world, ratings don't mean much.

 

What does this even mean?

 

In a post Benoit world, you should understand what that means.

I still don't have a clue what you are talking about. Please enlighten me.

 

He is presumably making fun of my use of the "Post Benoit world" comment in relation to not believing wrestlers. Why he still carries out that "joke" is beyond me.