Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Bigger star, Hogan or Austin?
Comments
-
-
Vince McMahon’s hair (wrestled for by Umaga) vs. Donald Trump’s hair (wrestled for by Bobby Lashley) (Detroit Ford Field - 74,687 - set all-time worldwide PPV record with 1,250,000 buys and all-time North American pro wrestling gate record of $5,380,000. Current record holder for biggest grossing pro wrestling event of all-time). Don't see the relevance of that to this debate.What is still the record WWE PPV in an era when PPV's were less established?
I've repeatedly said the Hogan drew for longer, but Austin drew more at his peak. That has never been in question. Bear in mind also that injuries halted Austin's career, if he were stil working he'd still be at the top of the business.How long did Austin draw in comparison to Hogan?
At least a decade from 1984 onwards and had other peaks throughout the 90's. Again, I'm not belittling his longevity, he just never hit the peaks Austin did at his height.How long was Hogan's peak?
Again debateable and not very relevant. The attitude era had some big stars, but bear in mind Austin's biggest achievement was taking WWF from the dead around from 1996-1998, a period when Main Event starts were at an absolute premium. And Hogan had plenty huge Superstars to work with as well, guys like Piper, Andre, Warrior, Savage, Sheikhy to name but a few.Who had better material to work with?
Both guys' popularity was unquestionably at its height while as a face. Hogan had a sucessful heel turn with WCW, but comparing the buyrates for WCW when he turned with WWF's in 1996 and 1997 (which at the time were in a huge downturn) shows that they only outdrew WWF on three occasions. Hogan did well as a heel, but not spectacularly.Who drew as both heel and a face?
Austin was poorly booked in WCW, it was Vince who knew how to book him. You can't blame Austin for how he was booked elsewhere in fairness.Who drew for two companies?
Vince was impoaratant to Austin's popularity, thats pretty obvious. But remember Austin had already turned around the fortunes of the company and set the ball rolling long before his on screen feud with Vince began. And I still maintain Austin was far more important a figure than Vince:look at how many times Vince has tried to recreate his own on screen feud feud with pretty every much babyface since Austin (INCLUDING Hogan by the way!), but with a fraction of the same success. That tells me Austin was a one-off and undoubtedly the star of the era, even more than McMahon. Of course Vince was the perfect foil for Austin,but equally wouldHogan have broken the then buyrate records at Mania 3 without Andre to play off?Would Austin have drawn anything close to what Hogan did without Vince?
Not sure what you're getting at here Bubs, sorry.Was Austin the face of a massively aggressive takeover that laid the foundation for everyone afterwards?
I don't think so. What evidence is there that Austin alone cause fan burnout? Probably overexposing the product as a whole, with 4-5 hours of Tv a week and 12-14 PPV's per year was more to bkame. Pinning it on Austin is a bit much.
Did Austin burnout the wrestling audience? (serious question)
I know the WWF audience were pretty burned out on Hogan by 1992, hence his being booed at the Royal Rumble and house shows that year.
Both men's film careers completely tanked in fairness.Does he have any profile or star power outside the wrestling bubble? (Condemned)
Of course the Monday Night Wars were good for business, but to say that Ausitin rode a todal wave of popularity attibutable to Hogan alone is stretching the point ro a ridiculous level. It worked on both sides, only WWF capitalised better and won out in the end while WCW shot themselves in the foot (a large part of which can be put down to Hogan's ego btw).Did he ride a wave of popularity spearheaded by Hogan's progress in a competitive company?
Not sure what this means either, sorry.Is Austin Benoit anyway? Benoit is not the second best wrestler in history and even if you believe the Austin schtik Hogan is guaranteed the second biggest draw and draws are few and far between whereas great wrestlers are far more common. Nobody ever needed Benoit. Everyone needs Hogan.
At the end of the day we could argue the ins and out of this all weekend and come to no better conclusion. Theres compelling eveidence on both sides to back our arguments up. Its a debate that has raged for years and one side is never going to convince the other. Better informed guys, who can quote stats liberally still haven't managed to agree on it. But I've enjoyed the aul debate with you as usual Bubs. I'll see you over on Soccer tomorrow to discuss Ibra's appallingly inflated transfer fee.:p;)0 -
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
How do you quanify this so called mainstream recognition, though? As I had stated already, both men's film careers tanked badly and Hogan's TV shows hardly set the world on fire. The Rock (and the Necro Butcher:pac:) is arguably the wrestler to have had the most success as a film star, but he's just not in the league of Austin or Hogan and never transformed the wrestling industry like those two did.
Well quantifying it wouldn't be difficult at all as all you'd have to do is poll random punters and ask them if they know either man! I'm sure you'd agree Hogan would easily garner more recognition. Hogan's film appearances were mostly awful but appearing in Rocky III and the Gremlins sequel is far more notable than anything Austin has ever done. As for Rock, I think he probably is at this stage a bigger mainstream star than Austin despite not being as important to the wrestling industry, although I personally would say he is in their league, albeit below them from a pro wrestling standpoint.flahavaj wrote:The Rock isn't credited with turning the entire wrestling business around like Austin did. Later on you state that Austin stood on the giant shoulders of Hogan. Actually, the fact of the matter is that Austin was the main player in the Attitude era, and if anything everyone else, Rock included was riding on the back of his stunning (forgive the pun) success.
I never said Rock turned around the entire wrestling business but he certainly had more than a fraction of Austin's success.
Had he not been there in 2000 the WWF would have been diabolical. I think you make a fair point about the likes of the Rock benefitting from Austin but it's a two-way street and it should be acknowledged there were other key players who helped make Austin what he was. Bret, Vince, Michaels, hell even Tyson you could say. Austin was certainly the face of the Attitude Era but not the only one. I think Hogan however defined his era more than Steve did his.flahavaj wrote:As for 2000, when Austin was injured. Wasn't that the year they put a fatal four way as the Main Event of Mania for the only time in history and threw a McMahon in the corner of each wrestler for good measure? Why do you think they did this? Because Vince knew well that any two out of HHH, Rock, Foley or Big Show wouldn't have drawn anywhere NEAR the numbers Austin did in singles main events the years before AND after. None of them was anywhere near the star Austin was, thats an inarguable fact.
Didn't WM2000 do a better buyrate than WM17 where Austin featured? Stas here.
Wrestlemania XVI - 2.35 buyrate
Wrestlemania 17 - 2.15 buyrate
Seems like Wrestlemania did just fine without Austin or are you saying the buyrate was because of Foley, Big Show, HHH etc?
I personally think a main event of Rock vs Triple H for the title would have drawn very good numbers although I concede it got very muddled at Mania. I've always felt the Backlash main event should have been the Mania main event.
As for these great numbers that Austin supposedly brings which no one else can touch (I think that's highly debateable as the stats above show), how come Cyber Sunday last year in which Austin appeared as special referee for the Jericho/Batista match drew just 153,000 buys? To put that in perspective, in 2007 the show drew 194,000 buys and in 2006 the show drew 228,000 buys. Do you think if Hogan or Rock had been there that the buys for 2008 would have been that low? I doubt it!flahavaj wrote:The highest rated match in RAW history was actually Austin vs Undertaker, by the way You might be thinking of the Rock and Foley "This is your life" segment that for a long time was the highest rated segment, until it was surpassed by Edge and Lita's live sex celebration. And no ones claiming those two are the biggest stars ever, in fairness.:p
I'm aware the Rock/Foley segment did an 8. something or other but I'm certain I read Meltzer report one time that a match with Rock and Shane was the most viewed Raw match. By the way, Edge and Lita didn't top the Foley/Rock segment rating surely?flahavaj wrote:You could equally argue that guys like Superstar Billy Graham paved the way for Hogan. Saying that just because Hogan came before Austin and paved the way for him (which he absolutely did by the way) is in no way an indication that he was the bigger star. That WAY to simplistic a method of examining the topic.
Bret Hart, D-X, The Rock and all those other guys are rarely acknowledged because the hard evidence id there that they didn't do business in the spectacular way that Austin (or indeed Hogan) did. (Again see my point about the overloaded fatal four way WM Main Event in 2000)
It's true that just because Hogan paved the way for Austin it doesn't make him a bigger star but that is not the argument most of us have been making. What I think settles the debate is the undeniable fact that Hulk Hogan has transcended the wrestling business in a way that Stone Cold Steve Austin did not. That, I think, makes him the bigger star.
If we poll 100 random people on the street and 35 of them have heard of Stone Cold but 85 of them have heard of Hulk Hogan then it is abundantly clear who the bigger star is. It doesn't mean Hogan is more important to the wrestling industry, it means Hogan benefitted from his association with the industry more than Austin did.0 -
He had what, a 10 minute cameo in the Rocky III and wasn't even important to the plotline. Anyone could have played the part of Thunder Lips in fairness. His being in the film had absolutely no bearing on the success or otherwise of the film in reality. My point was, when he made films in his own right they bombed spectacularly. The point that has been made repeatedly by you and several others is that Hogan "transcended wrestling." Surely if he had really done so, he would have been able to sell film on the back of this apparent fame and popularity. But he didn't.Well quantifying it wouldn't be difficult at all as all you'd have to do is poll random punters and ask them if they know either man! I'm sure you'd agree Hogan would easily garner more recognition. Hogan's film appearances were mostly awful but appearing in Rocky III and the Gremlins sequel is far more notable than anything Austin has ever done. As for Rock, I think he probably is at this stage a bigger mainstream star than Austin despite not being as important to the wrestling industry, although I personally would say he is in their league, albeit below them from a pro wrestling standpoint.
Maybe my saying Rock wasn't in their league was an exagerration, but I'm glad you agree that he simply wasn't as big or important a star in terms of the wrestling industry as Hogan/Austin as this is a commonly accepted fact. Of course the success of his film career further clouds the issue as you could now say he has transcended wrestling more successfully than either Hogan or Austin. And where does that leave us?:pac:I never said Rock turned around the entire wrestling business but he certainly had more than a fraction of Austin's success. Had he not been there in 2000 the WWF would have been diabolical. I think you make a fair point about the likes of the Rock benefitting from Austin but it's a two-way street and it should be acknowledged there were other key players who helped make Austin what he was. Bret, Vince, Michaels, hell even Tyson you could say. Austin was certainly the face of the Attitude Era but not the only one. I think Hogan however defined his era more than Steve did his.
Certainly I have no problem acknowledging the importance of the other main players in the Attitude era. This is the most sucessful era in the istory of pro wrestling we're talking about and to say it was solely down to one guy would be extremely short sighted of me. But he was the top guy. Perhaps the best way to put it is this: Austin was the reason the Attitude Era even existed in the first place, and without him to cause the boom in business that brought it about, there never would have been the environment for the likes of the Rock et al to flourish.
Yes WM 16 did around 100,000 buys more than WM 17. But remember the boom had already begun and the whole industry was riding the crest of a wave of massive massive popualrity, much of which was down to Austin. I used WM 16 as an example of how Austin was viewed by Vince as being so important to business. He didn't have the confidence in his other Main Event players, HHH, Rock, Big Show etc to do a straight singles match and draw similal numbers to what Austin had done previously. In order to get that high buyrate, he had to take the unprecedented step of throwing together all his big stars into one match as well as the entire McMahon family. It took 8 superstars in effect to draw a slightly better buyrate than Austin drew with Rock the year before. The fact that Vince would go to such lengths speaks volumes for the importance of Austin as he saw it.
Didn't WM2000 do a better buyrate than WM17 where Austin featured? Stas here.
Wrestlemania XVI - 2.35 buyrate
Wrestlemania 17 - 2.15 buyrate
Seems like Wrestlemania did just fine without Austin or are you saying the buyrate was because of Foley, Big Show, HHH etc?
I personally think a main event of Rock vs Triple H for the title would have drawn very good numbers although I concede it got very muddled at Mania. I've always felt the Backlash main event should have been the Mania main event.
Its a little unfair to expext a special guest referee, a decade after his peak, to draw signifigant numbers in a PPV that is traditionally one of the poorest drawing of the year, which is based on a deeply flawed concept and which has since been ditched. Going in, Austin was only one of the choices that people could vote on to be the referee: so he wasn't an advertised attraction for the show, so its a little bit unfair to expect him to affect buyrate when hes not even guaraneed to make an appearance! And to be perfectly honest Hogan, Austin and Rock combined couldn't save the disaster that was last year's Cyber Sunday!
As for these great numbers that Austin supposedly brings which no one else can touch (I think that's highly debateable as the stats above show), how come Cyber Sunday last year in which Austin appeared as special referee for the Jericho/Batista match drew just 153,000 buys? To put that in perspective, in 2007 the show drew 194,000 buys and in 2006 the show drew 228,000 buys. Do you think if Hogan or Rock had been there that the buys for 2008 would have been that low? I doubt it!
I'm almost certain those numbers are correct, I might try and hunt down the appropriate quote from WON tomorrow. Rock/Foley did an 8.4 I think off the top of my head.
I'm aware the Rock/Foley segment did an 8. something or other but I'm certain I read Meltzer report one time that a match with Rock and Shane was the most viewed Raw match. By the way, Edge and Lita didn't top the Foley/Rock segment rating surely?
Edit: Actually the live sex celebration only did a 5.2, my apologies on that, the source I was using was incorrect.
It's true that just because Hogan paved the way for Austin it doesn't make him a bigger star but that is not the argument most of us have been making. What I think settles the debate is the undeniable fact that Hulk Hogan has transcended the wrestling business in a way that Stone Cold Steve Austin did not. That, I think, makes him the bigger star.
If we poll 100 random people on the street and 35 of them have heard of Stone Cold but 85 of them have heard of Hulk Hogan then it is abundantly clear who the bigger star is. It doesn't mean Hogan is more important to the wrestling industry, it means Hogan benefitted from his association with the industry more than Austin did.
This right here is the real nub of the issue. I think we can both agree that Hogan had more longevity at the top of the wrestling busines, while Austin's run, while shorter, was more successful in terms of making money and drawing fans.
The phrase "Hogan transcended the business" has been used by yourself and several others but in what sense do you believe that to be true? His film career was God awful and films in which he was the main attraction had little success. Likewise his TV appearanes.
Again the argument that seems to be coming up repeatedly is the amount of people that have heard of the respective men. As you say, if you polled 100 random people, Hogan would most likely be the more recognised name. Would it be close? I really have no idea, to my knowledge such a poll has never been done, but I don't think it would be landslide victory for Hogan by any means. If 80% had heard of Hogan and 50% had heard of Austin, would that settle our argument for once and for all? I really don't think so. Because Hogan had a longer run over a 25 year span at the top of the wrestling industry he would naturally have a much wider age group of people who would have grown up with Hogan. Austin on the other hand had a career that was curtailed by injury and so his run at the top of the wrestling industry was limited to 5-6 years and a much narrower age group would thus be familiar with him. It has little to do with Hogan transcending wrestling and more to do with the length of Hogan's run on top. I still maintain that Austin's success while at this height, which is unparralleled in the history of the business, makes him the biggest star of all time.
Basically, the argument of name recognition is purely hypothetical and has enough variables involved for there to be some room for argument with the result on both sides. Its not a definitive way of settling this argument either way. In fact the beauty of this debate (and its one I've seen rage on and off for years, without any conclusion) is that theres a compelling arguent to be made on both sides. Like any great argument, its not black and white by any means, there are many shades of grey, which make it a most enjoyable topic to debate back and forth like this!0 -
Advertisement
-
He had what, a 10 minute cameo in the Rocky III and wasn't even important to the plotline. Anyone could have played the part of Thunder Lips in fairness. His being in the film had absolutely no bearing on the success or otherwise of the film in reality. My point was, when he made films in his own right they bombed spectacularly. The point that has been made repeatedly by you and several others is that Hogan "transcended wrestling." Surely if he had really done so, he would have been able to sell film on the back of this apparent fame and popularity. But he didn't.
Maybe my saying Rock wasn't in their league was an exagerration, but I'm glad you agree that he simply wasn't as big or important a star in terms of the wrestling industry as Hogan/Austin as this is a commonly accepted fact. Of course the success of his film career further clouds the issue as you could now say he has transcended wrestling more successfully than either Hogan or Austin. And where does that leave us?:pac:
Hogan's cameo wasn't important to the film true enough but I think it's fair to say it was very important for him in terms of putting him into the public spotlight. The fact he's a godawful actor I think is accepted by everybody but his acting skills don't take away from the fact he successfully broke into the mainstream spotlight helping bring wrestling to the masses.
Your argument that because of his weak films he didn't transcend wrestling I can't agree with. That's like saying if Paris Hilton is truly a mainstream personality then she should have been able to make House of Wax a smash hit. A crap movie is a crap movie and a crap actor, no matter how well known, won't change that. Likewise Eric Cantona's recent film doesn't need to be a box office smash to prove Cantona is a star. I'm sure we agree on that one.
Rock's better movie career doesn't necessarily make him the biggest mainstream star as that supposes only films account for getting over with the audience. Hogan was on talk shows a lot more than Rock or Austin I would say and was perhaps a bigger hero to the kiddies than Rock and Austin so could further branch into the mainstream that way, as well as the TV and film appearances.flahavaj wrote:Certainly I have no problem acknowledging the importance of the other main players in the Attitude era. This is the most sucessful era in the istory of pro wrestling we're talking about and to say it was solely down to one guy would be extremely short sighted of me. But he was the top guy. Perhaps the best way to put it is this: Austin was the reason the Attitude Era even existed in the first place, and without him to cause the boom in business that brought it about, there never would have been the environment for the likes of the Rock et al to flourish.
I can accept Austin was the top guy but to say the Attitude Era would not have existed without him I feel is a bit of a stretch. It would perhaps not have caught the public imagination as well as it did, but the reality is there was a mood for a counter-culture product as evidenced by ECW's growth in popularity. If there had been no Austin there would still have been Shawn Michaels, Hunter, The Rock, Mick Foley jumping off Cells and all the other whackiness. Vince wanted it so it was going to happen. WCW were doing the counter-culture stuff and WWF had to get with the times or else die. Austin was the perfect fit for the era but it was going to happen with or without him.flahavaj wrote:Yes WM 16 did around 100,000 buys more than WM 17. But remember the boom had already begun and the whole industry was riding the crest of a wave of massive massive popualrity, much of which was down to Austin. I used WM 16 as an example of how Austin was viewed by Vince as being so important to business. He didn't have the confidence in his other Main Event players, HHH, Rock, Big Show etc to do a straight singles match and draw similal numbers to what Austin had done previously. In order to get that high buyrate, he had to take the unprecedented step of throwing together all his big stars into one match as well as the entire McMahon family. It took 8 superstars in effect to draw a slightly better buyrate than Austin drew with Rock the year before. The fact that Vince would go to such lengths speaks volumes for the importance of Austin as he saw it.
You said before no one could touch Austin's numbers and that "Vince knew well that any two out of HHH, Rock, Foley or Big Show wouldn't have drawn anywhere NEAR the numbers Austin did in singles main events the years before AND after."
This has been shown not to be the case. I think the Rock vs the McMahon/Helmsley storyline was responsible for most of the buys and not Big Show, Foley, Shane, Vince, Linda etc. I'd say their effect was minimal. Surely it's fair to say The Rock was responsible for most of the buyrate. The same guy who did a huge number alongside Austin the year before. The fact is Austin was not irreplaceable and if he had been so important to the numbers as you suggest, then surely they would have had him appear on the show a month before he did so at Backlash.flahavaj wrote:Its a little unfair to expext a special guest referee, who hadn't wrestled in 6 or 7 years to draw signifigant numbers in a PPV that is traditionally one of the poorest drawing of the year, which is based on a deeply flawed concept and which has since been ditched. Going in, Austin was only one of the choices that people could vote on to be the referee: so he wasn't an advertised attraction for the show, so its a little bit unfair to expect him to affect buyrate when hes not even guaraneed to make an appearance! And to be perfectly honest Hogan, Austin and Rock combined couldn't save the disaster that was last year's Cyber Sunday!
Is it really unfair to expect a guy who is supposedly the biggest star in the history of pro wrestling to get a better buyrate than 153,000 buys? I know he wasn't guaranteed to appear but realistically wrestling fans knew he would likely win the vote. If Hogan or Rock were on the card, even if they were not guaranteed to win the vote, I'm confident they'd get a higher buyrate.flahavaj wrote:This right here is the real nub of the issue. I think we can both agree that Hogan had more longevity at the top of the wrestling busines, while Austin's run, while shorter, was more successful in terms of making money and drawing fans.
The phrase "Hogan transcended the business" has been used by yourself and several others but in what sense do you believe that to be true? His film career was God awful and films in which he was the main attraction had little success. Likewise his TV appearanes.
When I say he transcended the business I mean he became in essence the poster boy for pro wrestling. His unique, cartoonish look and his catchphrases made him into a larger-than-life personality. When he'd appear people would say, "That's Hulk Hogan the wrestler". As I said before, the fact he was an atrocious actor doesn't detract from the personality that he had. Hogan reached into the public consciousness around the world in a way no other wrestler has managed to do since, including Austin.flahavaj wrote:Again the argument that seems to be coming up repeatedly is the amount of people that have heard of the respective men. As you say, if you polled 100 random people, Hogan would most likely be the more recognised name. Would it be close? I really have no idea, to my knowledge such a poll has never been done, but I don't think it would be landslide victory for Hogan by any means. If 80% had heard of Hogan and 50% had heard of Austin, would that settle our argument for once and for all? I really don't think so. Because Hogan had a longer run over a 25 year span at the top of the wrestling industry he would naturally have a much wider age group of people who would have grown up with Hogan. Austin on the other hand had a career that was curtailed by injury and so his run at the top of the wrestling industry was limited to 5-6 years and a much narrower age group would thus be familiar with him. It has little to do with Hogan transcending wrestling and more to do with the length of Hogan's run on top. I still maintain that Austin's success while at this height, which is unparralleled in the history of the business, makes him the biggest star of all time.
Surely the fact you agree Hogan would likely gain more recognition from people does settle the argument as to who was the bigger star? The points you make about Hogan's run being longer than Austin are certainly valid and in that sense Austin is admittedly unlucky but that is the way it worked out. Your reason for saying Austin was the bigger star seems to be limited to the industry of pro wrestling. You note his unparallelled success at the height of his career. I understand all that but feel this is a limited view on the two men. Star power ought to take into account non wrestling fans too.
I think this is where you and I differ because I feel we should look at overall pop culture so to speak and the impact the men had on that area, whereas you seem to want to focus just on the importance to pro wrestling.flahavaj wrote:Basically, the argument of name recognition is purely hypothetical and has enough variables involved for there to be some room for argument with the result on both sides. Its not a definitive way of settling this argument either way. In fact the beauty of this debate (and its one I've seen rage on and off for years, without any conclusion) is that theres a compelling arguent to be made on both sides. Like any great argument, its not black and white by any means, there are many shades of grey, which make it a most enjoyable topic to debate back and forth like this!
Yes it's one of those things that will continue to be debated over the years and I'm sure everyone will adopt their own slant on it as we have.
I reckon orestes needs to settle this by roaming the streets with his billboard to find out what the people of Ireland think about the two guys. :cool:0 -
-
Advertisement