Is John Cena the biggest draw in wrestling?
He headlined the two most bought and highest grossing pro wrestling PPVs of all time (2007 & 2012). Yet people don’t see him as the biggest draw.
Wouldn’t being able to get people to pay actual money to watch you, instead of just watching for free make you a legit draw?
As a current fan and one that watches WWE regularly, I’d say Cena is probably still up there as one of the top 5 draws in the business today. Love him or hate him he always gets huge reactions from the crowds and is appreciated for everything he has done in WWE. So yes whilst people will still pay to see him, buy his merchandise and he puts people in seats, I don’t think he’s considered the top.
I think there are current stars that are bigger draws, Cody Rhodes is still going strong and gets huge reactions. Roman Reigns, since returning has been doing great.
But I honestly think there is probably one name that’s a bigger draw than them all. The Rock. It doesn’t matter how long away from wrestling he’s been gone, when he returns he has the crowd eating out his hands. He can turn from good guy to bad guy in a minute and the fans go along with it.
100% the first person I thought of, as a non watcher of pro wrestling, was The Rock. That's for sure partially a product of my age and childhood influence, but people who have only seen him in movies still know him as The Rock. It's an influence that transcends pop culture. To this day people are still trying to figure what he was cooking...
You can't see him free or paid, so how can he be a big draw?
I think that that’s the actual draw. People think that they me be the first ones to ever see him.
Oh you ate that
2012 was 13 years ago. That's a pretty long time for younger folks.
I mean Wrestlemania 28
The only reason 2007 and 2012 were the biggest paid ppvs ever are because you're using money paid rather than number of purchases.
It's the same reason new movies always outsell the old movies. Doesn't mean one movie or the other drew more relative money vs another movie. It just means if you saw Gone with the Wind in theaters, you likely paid around $0.75 for your ticket.
I'm sure The Emoji movie outsold Gone with the Wind. Movie tickets in 2012 were also closer to $12. Today tickets at my local cinema are closer to $18.
That means for every 1 person who saw The Emoji movie, 16 people would have to see Gone with the Wind to equal the same dollar amount.
If we compared PPVs sold, I'm CERTAIN Hulk Hogan is the leading draw of all time. His 80s run will forever be unmatched. His 90s NWO run was almost on par with his 80s run. Thenhe even had a decent nostolgia run in the 2000s.
Moneywise? No. An 80s PPV was $20. By 1997 it was $35, and by 2007 it was $90.
So yeah, dollars to sales don't line up because of inflation/rising prices. But if we keep 1 buy = 1 buy, I'm positive Hogan is the all time sales draw. Rock would come close, if it weren't for his constant long departures. You gotta remember, from 1975-2012, Hogan was almost always in pro-wrestling. Small gaps here and there, yes. But Rock left for multiple years at a time. And PPV wasn't even a thing until 1986 or so. So he lost out on 11 years of ppv numbers because it wasn't even invented yet.
That being said, Hogan is a slimy piece of shit, and I'm not endorsing him. Just stating facts about who sold tickets and ppvs.