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Hulk Hogan

He paved the wave for The Rock and Stone Cold, it doesn't matter if the Attitude Era was more successful financially, Hogan made it mainstream in the first place.

I think at his peak in popularity Austin was more popular than The Rock and Hogan, but Hogan did it for far longer than Austin which made him a part of like 90% of America's childhood/adolescence for atleast a decade. The Rock has also maintained and even expanded his popularity by jumping to Hollywood.

Don't know about that, Rock's popularity peaked in 1999 (he wasn't any more over in 2000 IMO, Austin just wasn't around so it seemed that way) and the years '99 and 2000 were the peak of WWF's popularity. They were dead even in 1999 IMO, both got some of the biggest pops of their careers that year.

 

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I remember a couple of months back when I first joined the forum someone did an excellent post, referencing WWE's merchandise and buy-rate statistics, when determining WWE's biggest star ever. From what I can recall he determined that Stone Cold was easily the biggest merchandise seller of all time (taking into account inflation, availability etc.), Hulk Hogan was a far second. So in terms of merchandise sales, it's Steve Austin. Not sure, if that's what you'd base stardom off though.

I would give you the link but it was from a while back.

Yeah, the biggest merchandise sellers are usually those who promote it all time. Rock was definitely was a big time merchandise seller, but in 1999-2000 I don't think he promoted his merchandise as much as Austin did (I think the only shirts he wore a lot were his Layeth the Smacketh Down Shirt and Just Bring It shirt). With Austin you were guaranteed to see him with a T-shirt, same thing with DX, they wore their shirts pretty much all of the time, that's why their merchandise sales are also very high. With Rock you mainly saw him in $500 shirts or a plain black/white shirt on, but yeah, promoting the merchandise heavily helps you out in the long run. IMO merchandise sells are only a small part of what makes you big, DX were one of the biggest merchandise sellers of all time but really, does anyone actually think they were huge stars at the time, I don't really think so, they were midcarders (or in HHH's case uppercarders) at best. What really makes you big is if you can sell out a show on your name alone, The Rock has done this, that's why he's a bigger star than you think. Remember there were huge draws in wrestling before merchandise was ever even a thought, they sold out arenas to get that title in the beginning, merchandise came much later.

 

[CM4]

You're probably right. The post I was referring to also referenced to PPV buy rates and live event attendance, I think. I wish I could link it, it was a really good post with interesting statistics.

I don't think the Rock necessarily sold out more shows then Hogan or Austin or DX or anyone, but I'm not 100% sure.

Well 2000 was WWF's most successful year financially (I have that in bold because I meant before it became WWE and before the Brand Split changed how they make their profit), that should give you a hint.

Like I said merchandise sales help, but the real question is "Can you sell out an arena"? DX may have been popular, but they were not main eventers, their position on the card was no higher than say, D-lo Brown.

 

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Ummmm, what is Ric Flair doing in a "biggest" WWE star list?

This one is easy: Hogan, Austin, and Rock. All of them. Remove one and WWE won't be the same.

True, give Rock his respect. With Austin gone in late 1999-late 2000 who else was over as Rock? Exactly, no one else. Undertaker and HHH have never been able to carry the company as a babyface, they either had to be the heel or below Rock/Austin if they were babyface.

 

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I thought Rocko advertised his merch at every Raw/Smackdown show, with the 'Finally, The Rock has come back to ___', there was alot of those shirts in the crowd saying 'Finally....'

I mean he barely wore his T-shirts. If you wear your T-shirts all the time your merchandise sales obviously are gonna go up. In 1999-2000 did you see Rock in a T-shirt or his $500 shirts more? Exactly.