WWF Created Stars

[efarns]

inspired by the current thread about WCW only "creating" one star . . .

How many stars did The WWE/WWF create from the ground up? How many wrestlers had no national exposure before becoming main eventers for Vince McMahon?

1. The Rock

[mattyy]

2. John Cena
3. Randy Orton
4. Edge(Jobbing to Meng once doesn't count as national exposure).
5. Kane

[The Blue Nova]

Brock Lesnar

[Deleted]

Batista
Hardy Boys
Christian

[nickcave]

Pretty much everyone in the WWE right now.

[Push R Truth]

Mr McMahon

[The Blue Nova]

Kurt Angle
Sheamus
Mark Henry

[thecrusherwi]

Almost no one through the Monday Night Wars. Almost everyone since.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Dec 5, 2013 19:02:41 GMT -5 thecrusherwi said:

Almost no one through the Monday Night Wars. Almost everyone since.

This pretty much sums it up.

[Amazing Kitsune]

This thread is unfair. We should strictly be talking about the period of time that WCW and the WWF were both around. Of course the WWE's made stars since then, they're the only ones who can.

[Bad Moon]

HBK and the Harts seem like the obvious big ones. Not that I don't think they couldn't have made it anywhere else, but the WWF was where they turned to megastars.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Dec 6, 2013 9:08:07 GMT -5 Bad Moon said:

HBK and the Harts seem like the obvious big ones. Not that I don't think they couldn't have made it anywhere else, but the WWF was where they turned to megastars.

But this raises the same point as I made in the other thread, which is that WCW did the same for some of the WWF guys, taking them from stars to megastars, so you can't really count them as being home grown either.

[repomark]

I suppose the stipulations of the thread limits it because you are only asking for those that WWF grew from no real national exposure to being a star. By that I presume you mean a star during the attitude era that had never worked in WCW before?

"Creating a star" for me also means taking a talent that has never been a main event player and making them a mega star or a bigger star. WWF did this with a lot of guys who had worked in WCW before but never rose above mid card or lower, e.g. Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho.

Guys like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels had worked for other promotions and gained some exposure (although not WCW) but it was WWE that really put them on the map.

During the Attitude era guys like Kane, Edge, Jeff Hardy all became players.

I suppose WWE's point with WCW not creating that many stars, is that they did take a lot of guys who were established in WWE - Nash, Hogan, Hall, Savage etc - and use them to elevate their product. However, to say that only Goldberg emerged during the Monday Night Wars and was the only star that WCW created I think is not true, as guys like Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Benoit all became big names. They also made Sting an even bigger star during that time.

However, where as I think the WWE have overplayed this "WCW didn't create enough stars" and exaggerated it, it still is true that WCW underutilised some key talent that turned out to be ratings winners in WWE, and ultimately turn the tide.

[Todd Pettengill]

1-2-3 Kid/Xpac
Billy Gunn/ The Smoking Gunns
Rock
HBK

[Hurbster]

Warrior.

[MolotovMocktail]

Dec 6, 2013 9:08:07 GMT -5 Bad Moon said:

HBK and the Harts seem like the obvious big ones. Not that I don't think they couldn't have made it anywhere else, but the WWF was where they turned to megastars.

The Midnight Rockers were already gaining exposure in the AWA, and the Harts were huge in Canada, so I don't know if that counts.

What about the Undertaker? Was his NWA time as Mean Mark Callas enough to say he was established before coming to the WWF?

[rapidfire187]

Yokozuna
Rikishi & Too Cool
Edge and Christian
The Hardys
The Rock
The Godfather
The New Age Outlaws

Can we count HHH? I think he counts.

Kane

There's just too many guys that WWE undoubtedly made into stars. Most of them had wrestling experience but only at a very small level.

[champviadq]

The Hardy Boyz

[Deleted]

I'd tend to think a lot of what the WWF did was like flipping a house in need of a fresh coat of paint and a touch of remodeling. There were a lot of guys who became almost new wrestlers with a gimmick change. So, they created a lot of "Superstars"; guys they can control as far as marketing them and making money off of them. Rare was the guy who went from some other territory to the WWF and not have something different about them. (Hacksaw Jim Duggan is one of the rarities I can think of that was basically the same guy he was in Mid-South.)

But from the ground up? Even though he had some experience elsewhere, the WWF was the first time I can recall hearing anything about Earthquake (our good departed friend, John Tenta).

[Joe Neglia]

Dec 5, 2013 12:18:18 GMT -5 efarns said:

inspired by the current thread about WCW only "creating" one star . . .

How many stars did The WWE/WWF create from the ground up? How many wrestlers had no national exposure before becoming main eventers for Vince McMahon?

Loaded question. Very, very few wrestlers had national exposure per se before McMahon went into expansion mode in the mid-80s. That said, I believe Brutus Beefcake was the first wrestler/gimmick that the WWF created and outright owned, and he definitely wasn't much of anything before that, so he'd be the first, at least in terms of what you're asking.