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#5 – Stone Cold Steve Austin
The Rattlesnake is arguably the single biggest drawing Superstar in WWE history. His appeal during the Attitude Era was off the charts, with Vince McMahon himself claiming that no other superstar could quite touch the heights of popularity or merchandising and marketing potential that Stone Cole scaled in those years.
His character - that of an out-of-control, trash talking, beer-guzzling redneck who constantly thwarted his boss’ plans, was his greatest selling point, for it rung through and true to the audience. From 1997 to 2002, Stone Cold Steve Austin’s dominion over the wrestling fan-base was one of the main reasons why WCW was eventually eclipsed by the WWE in the Monday Night Wars.
Having been grossly underutilized and devalued in his early WCW career, Stone Cold came back to haunt their profligacy and played an integral role in tipping the TV ratings onto the WWE’s court once and for all. Perhaps Austin’s greatest achievement though, was the unconscious role he played in the creation of another megastar in his time, The Rock.
The rivalry that was shared between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, in the backdrop of WWE’s most popular era, is possibly the biggest drawing rivalry between two superstars whose respective peaks sufficiently coincided. Never before had there been two colossal draws at the same time that shared the WWE landscape like Stone Cold and The Rock, and never since, underscoring what will possibly go down as the greatest rivalry in WWE history.
Despite being accused of “taking his ball and going home” towards the tail-down of his career in 2003, Austin’s popularity never took a hit with the fans in the long run nor was he forced to change his gimmick for the want of not being stale or repetitive, an ode to the unparalleled impact that the Stone Cold persona was responsible for creating, in the company’s most relevant era till date.
#4 – Hulk Hogan
When Vince McMahon purchased the company from his father, any future expansion plans that he had formulated for the product had to be kept under wraps for fear of evoking strong displeasure. The integrity of every independent promotion, and indeed its geographical boundaries had been respected up till then, but the face of pro-wrestling changed under Vince McMahon’s grandiose vision with one wrestler, Hulk Hogan, at the epicenter of the revolution.
His hand in globally popularizing the WWE cannot be understated, as Hulk Hogan smoothed the transition that pro-wrestling was making from catering to a selective fan-base to one that generated worldwide appeal. His charisma and physique led the WWE’s way into the hearts of a new generation of audience, many of whom have been irrevocably hooked on to the product ever since.
As wrestling’s first global megastar, the Hulkster’s rise to superstardom went hand in hand with the WWE’s search for greater marketability and his legendary feuds with the likes of Andre the Giant, Roddy Piper and Randy Savage served to further cement the vested interest that pro-wrestling was already beginning to foster on a world level.
Being the most recognizable WWE Superstar of all time though, had its drawbacks that evidentially came to the fore in what was as trying a time for the WWE and Vince Mcmahon as it was for the nervous on-looking fans of the company – The steroid trial.
The Hulkster’s legacy was not the only entity that was besmirched in what turned out to be a turning point in WWE programming. Kudos to Hogan though, who re-invented himself as a heel in WCW, going on to form what is arguably the most contestable and controversial faction in pro-wrestling history, The New World Order.
Despite his stint in WCW, everything that one needed to know about the Hulkster would be encapsulated in that one timeless moment of magic that highlighted his second stint in the WWE at Wrestlemania 18. It would not be incorrect to surmise that some of the WWE’s most historically poignant moments have involved the Immortal One.
