12 Richest WWE Matches Of All Time
Money Days
"This is called show business, not show friends".
"The only things that are real in this business are the money and the miles".
The above quotes are attributed to Scott Hall and Kevin Nash respectively, dedicated as they were to taking as much as they could from an industry they believed was taking even more from them. Both statements carried additional poignancy when the pair left WWE for WCW in 1996.
Offered almighty Turner contracts after grinding their bodies to dust for diminutive dollars during lean years with Vince McMahon, the pair felt entitled to make bank they'd only heard stories about from the hangers-on still lingering after the boom period. Hall and Nash's shift south would trigger a chain of events that created wrestling's second summer.
The industry had long been a capitalistic hotbed despite the loose socialism at play during the territories era Vince McMahon systematically destroyed during the 1980s. Wise performers got in to get out, lured by the promise of unthinkable fortunes if they made it to the upper tier. The collected competitive drive often fueled the industry's engine just as much as a sound creative vision, allowing everybody to reap the rewards of exponential success.
Huge attendances, viewing figures, buyrates and paydays still remain the motivators for most performers these days, despite empty platitudes and forced gratitude espoused by the current main roster. Fans can see, smell and sense the money - wrestlers actually get to earn it.
12. The Iron Sheik Vs. Hulk Hogan (Madison Square Garden, 23 January 1984)
It's heartwarming to consider the 26,292 New Yorkers filing in to WWE's Big Apple base in January 1984, blissfully unaware how significant the show they were about to watch would be.
The attendance wasn't the biggest the group would ever achieve at Madison Square Garden, and the card overall certainly wasn't the best, but Hulk Hogan's liberation of the WWE Title from The Iron Sheik third from the top lit a fuse underneath Vince McMahon Jr's expanding organisation that ended up engulfing the entire industry.
Hogan had effectively cuckolded the strap upon his return to the company in late 1983 after saving former titleholder Bob Backlund from an attack by The Wild Samoans. An interview in which the company pillar anointed Hogan as the organisation's great new babyface hope was as sad as it was short, but the only colour more prominent than yellow in 'The Hulkster's first run was green.
Driving McMahon's ambitious plans to topple the territories, Hogan's position at the forefront of wrestling's biggest juggernaut spiked every metric. The 'Rock 'N' Wrestling' collaboration, the inaugural WrestleMania, skyrocketing attendances across the North East and a string of MSG sellouts were all built on the back of the 'Hulkamania' phenomenon. The game had changed.