John Cena: Where does he rank as an all time draw?

[Bernkastel]

On the ever changing list that I've compiled over the years in an attempt to categorize the top drawing superstars of all time, Cena currently ranks 11th on my list...

1.) Hogan
2.) Rikidozan
3.) Santo
4.) Austin
5.) Thesz
6.) Bruno
7.) Rocky
8.) Inoki
9.) Ed Lewis
10.) Flair
11.) Cena

Now there are other wildcards like Warrior, Sting, Race, Gagne, Blue Demon, HHH, Frank Gotch, Gorgeous George that deserve to be rather high as well. But are they bigger than Cena?

Where should Cena rank as an all time draw?

 

[Gelgarin]

He shouldn't. He's not a relevant draw in the manner of most of the names you've listed.

 

[Bernkastel]

He shouldn't. He's not a relevant draw in the manner of most of the names you've listed.

So where would you place him overall then? Top 20? Top 15? Below Race, higher than George etc etc

 

[Gelgarin]

I wouldn't put him on the same list. I don't think you can make a direct comparison between Television era talent and those who came before. Since the national television era set in, individuals have been supplanted as draws by the product as a whole.

For the most part, John Cena doesn't draw. The WWE draws, and John Cena is one of the most important components of the WWE machine, but evidence suggests that his removal has a fairly minor influence at best.

Putting Thesz, Hogan or Flair on a card basically guaranteed the show would pull a significantly larger audience, and thus draw more money, than one without them. The same is not true for John Cena, and has not been true for any star of his generation.

 

[Bernkastel]

I wouldn't put him on the same list. I don't think you can make a direct comparison between Television era talent and those who came before. Since the national television era set in, individuals have been supplanted as draws by the product as a whole.

For the most part, John Cena doesn't draw. The WWE draws, and John Cena is one of the most important components of the WWE machine, but evidence suggests that his removal has a fairly minor influence at best.

Putting Thesz, Hogan or Flair on a card basically guaranteed the show would pull a significantly larger audience, and thus draw more money, than one without them. The same is not true for John Cena, and has not been true for any star of his generation.

A fair argument, but I see Cena's current star power as his ability to maintain the WWE machine. While I don't doubt the presence of the company, surely not just anyone could be placed in Cena's shoes and be expected to perform at the same level of efficiency. I'd say that's evident on the fact that WWE has continued to rely on Cena to maintain their machine for so long.

But anyhow, taking into account that the machine keeps moving smoothly with or without him is justification enough to drop him down a couple spots.

 

[Gelgarin]

I have no idea how the WWE would function without John Cena. There can onlt ever be one or two top guys at any one time, so across every generation since the dawn of time the top names look irreplaceable - I would say that John Cena looks the most replaceable of any top name since Sammartino.

If you desperately want to compile a list, I have one. It's phenomenally poor reasoning, but I base it off of live gates. Live gates are the only barometer of popularity that have remained consistent across all generations.

Basically I give each wrestler a point for every time they headline a card that pulls over 10,000 people. Hopelessly biased towards modern and east coast talent - and outright discriminatory towards those names who worked in parts of the world where you couldn't get 10,000 into an arena to watch Jesus take on Hitler... but it's about the best scale I've been able to make.

I'm going off memory - since I reformatted my computer tonight and lost all my data, but it's something like.

1) Hulk Hogan
2) Ric Flair
3) Bruno Sammartino
4) Buddy Rogers
5) Steve Austin
6) The Sheik
7) Andre The Giant (though I strongly dispute this one)
8) Lou Thesz

and then I stop caring very much, but you get names like Rock, Londos, Backlund, Rocca, Taker and Race.

 

[ABMorales787]

I gotta disagree about Cena being replaceable. Maybe it's because of how I see WWE, but I feel they would be absolutely lost without him if he were to just retire suddenly or pull a Punk. It's shown when he's injured that WWE just becomes a total circle jerk and craps on whatever star they have take his place. Not to mention all the kiddie support that leaves with him.

 

[Hard Hit Prince]

If by draw you mean "butts to seats" and television viewers he isn't that big of a deal. But if by draw you mean the money said wrestler brings to a company, he would be #1 on the list.

He personally has said that he is valued above 100 milion dollars, which is 20% of WWE's income. I don't think that anyone can say such thing. Maybe Hogan.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

I agree with Gelg on this one, to the point that if Cena were to take his ball and go home tomorrow many would still tune in or replace Cena for a new love of Daniel Bryan, whose popularity is always increasing. The crap with SummerSlam that, "Bryan can't draw" is exactly that, crap. There was two guys in that main event and another match asides from it on the marquee. If Cena goes tomorrow they'd be losing a huge asset and maybe some fans would drop off, but I can't see it having a huge effect on business, not in this day and age.

 

[Bernkastel]

I have no idea how the WWE would function without John Cena. There can onlt ever be one or two top guys at any one time, so across every generation since the dawn of time the top names look irreplaceable - I would say that John Cena looks the most replaceable of any top name since Sammartino.

If you desperately want to compile a list, I have one. It's phenomenally poor reasoning, but I base it off of live gates. Live gates are the only barometer of popularity that have remained consistent across all generations.

Basically I give each wrestler a point for every time they headline a card that pulls over 10,000 people. Hopelessly biased towards modern and east coast talent - and outright discriminatory towards those names who worked in parts of the world where you couldn't get 10,000 into an arena to watch Jesus take on Hitler... but it's about the best scale I've been able to make.

I'm going off memory - since I reformatted my computer tonight and lost all my data, but it's something like.

1) Hulk Hogan
2) Ric Flair
3) Bruno Sammartino
4) Buddy Rogers
5) Steve Austin
6) The Sheik
7) Andre The Giant (though I strongly dispute this one)
8) Lou Thesz

and then I stop caring very much, but you get names like Rock, Londos, Backlund, Rocca, Taker and Race.

Most people that I've debated with seem to place allot of stock on PPV buys - which is something that didn't exist in the 60's and 70's. Or even 80's. I remember you saying something before about Thesz being miles above Andre as a draw, but your list is fairly consistent to mine barring International names. I'm sure most people won't dispute certain names, but since Cena is a product of a billion dollar juggernaut of a system it's hard to pin down exactly what his star power would be. Even the concept of what a "live gate" is has changed. It's the ticket sales, the sales from concession and merchandise, the advertisement, and the PPV buys... that's basically one gate.

So WM 27 which drew an absolutely ******ed sized gate of six and a half million dollars... how much of that can be equated to Cena and how much to WWE's reputation?

I suppose that if Gotch, Lewis, or Sammartino had the WWE's currently backing in their primes they would have drawn far more... or maybe not.

 

[Gelgarin]

If you look at PPVs, you'll see that the reputation of the PPV has a far bigger effect on the number of buys than whoever is headlining the card - which I feel rather supports the theory that the product draws over the talent.

If I headlined Wrestlemania I'd probably be able to make a case for myself as one of wrestling's biggest draws - because the show draws.

 

[Bernkastel]

If you look at PPVs, you'll see that the reputation of the PPV has a far bigger effect on the number of buys than whoever is headlining the card - which I feel rather supports the theory that the product draws over the talent.

If I headlined Wrestlemania I'd probably be able to make a case for myself as one of wrestling's biggest draws - because the show draws.

True. That's the argument that I've made against guys like Michaels and Taker in the past - which is why I don't rank either one very highly as draws [I think they both just barely make my top 30.]

So the issue is separating the talent from the product. If that's the case I do see Cena as a draw because he has helped the WWE machine grow. It's evident that the company is bigger now than it was 20 years ago. Somehow I feel that guys like Cena had to have been partially responsible for that other wise their wouldn't have been any growth. In contrast a Race or Rogers would have been responsible for driving business in multiple areas and promotions instead of just one. I suppose it's a matter of quantity versus quality. If that's the case should Cena be higher than they are because of sheer numbers?

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan, M.D.]

Who has sold the most merch out of him, Austin, and Hogan? Legit question.

 

[BaconBits]

Who has sold the most merch out of him, Austin, and Hogan? Legit question.

Those figures would be incredibly skewed by the rise of the innerwebz, and I doubt it really would provide any kind of solid comparison.

 

[BaconBits]

I've heard that John Cena is like the best drawer in history. Particularly with colored pencils, but not shitty Crayola pencils, like good ones from an art store.

 

[Mr. Artistic guy]

I've heard that John Cena is like the best drawer in history. Particularly with colored pencils, but not shitty Crayola pencils, like good ones from an art store.

No waaaay maaaan, I've seen Jeff Hardy's... stuff...

Yeah, the WWE is a very different beast, not just compared to the territories, but compared to WWE or yore. When I think of the WWE now, I feel like their corporate structure is so much more refined that they are firmly entrenched into their position. I think it would take series of catastrophic events to ever threaten the relative safety of their established market.

Television ratings for the show many be at a low point, but I also think they vary in a much smaller potential range of numbers. Shows can vary greatly, but the ratings do not fluctuate massively, if only noticeably and definably when a big star returns, expressed as an anomalous spike.

And I don't think Cena is a crutch for the WWE much now. He still moves merch by the boat-load, even when he's not the focus of the show because his success in the younger (and to a lesser extent, the female) demographics is so firmly entrenched. But I don't think he's as important now as he was in 2008, say, when he really was the overriding steadfast paragon of the organization. Now, he IS, as Punk so brilliantly put it, "the establishment", and he's the target for guys to aim for. And many guys have come through to take that shot. Cena is only getting older, he can't be made any bigger a star than he is now at the behest of The Rock's continued Wrestlemania presence. But Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns (for whom the stars are all but aligning), Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins, in that order, are threatening competently for that coveted spot, and soon enough he'll have to relinquish. And none of it will make a big difference to the ratings.

When you talk about how a guy draws these days, you really need to look much more at merchandise, unadulterated crowd reactions and gates of major PPVs (which are bastardised somewhat anyway by storylines), and then you need to compare that to other superstars as there is no other comparison for the WWE, except for maybe itself and it's stars of the last five or so years. I'm sure he's drawn a crazy amount for the WWE in revenue, but it's hard to really say what that amounts to, even when trying to compare to Rock or Austin of 15 years ago. The company is different, the structure is different, the ratings are less volatile.

 

[BaconBits]

No waaaay maaaan, I've seen Jeff Hardy's... stuff...

Jeff is definitely artistic, but he's just way too avant-garde for most folks. Cena does caricatures.

 

[Dirk]

Jeff is definitely artistic, but he's just way too avant-garde for most folks. Cena does caricatures.

Jeff probably gets the edge, but he's also had some "inspirational assistance" for the most part.

 

[BaconBits]

Jeff probably gets the edge, but he's also had some "inspirational assistance" for the most part.

Jeff's been clean since wifey fired a little one out of her cooch. It grew him up quite a bit. He seems to be in good place. Finally. Sadly, it spurred him to make some awful music though.