LogFAQs > #942161197

scarletspeed7 posted...

I think it gets lost in the shuffle, also, that quantifiably, Austin at his peak was bigger than Hogan at his peak. Hogan drew more over a longer period of time, but the true lightning in a bottle was Austin, who was the biggest merch mover outside of South Park in the era where that revenue stream was the strongest. And Austin repeatedly got WWF newer contract deals - Austin's very existence is what started TV as the profit center in wrestling, not to mention turning WWF into the publicly traded company it is today. In the nearly ten years where Hogan is at the top, he certainly has a few clear moments where he pulls in a larger number of viewers on network television, but that can also be attributed to Andre's presence as well. Austin was a consistent market-defining worker, and it really can't be ignored that, if anyone brought people to wrestling in a measurable way - it was Austin. With him, there was a huge trend upward. When he left, the downward trend never leveled off. Ever.

It surprises me that a guy as marketable, intelligent, and affable as Austin has spent his post-wrestling career hosting a relatively small-time podcast and no-name cattle ranch reality show. It seems to make him happy and that's great, but as you said, in his peak, Austin was a supernova. He should have enjoyed mainstream Hollywood success to at least rival Hogan and freakin' Cena.

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