10 Things You Didn't Know About Shane Helms

It's been said that WWE superstars, on the whole, don't make nearly as much money as many fans and members of the public probably think they do. The costs of hotels and rental cars and eating on the road take a big bite out of whatever a performer makes in a given year and, as such, they need to find ways to bump up their income.

Stuff like getting in the WWE video game, making pay-per-view appearances and, yes, having merchandise, make a huge difference to performers who are on lower downside guarantees. For a guy like Hurricane Helms, who wasn't exactly threatening to break into PPV main events, merchandise was especially important.

And Helms and WWE did make a killing with licensed products such as t-shirts, necklaces and action figures. In fact, according to the man himself, he was number three in merchandise sales (behind only The Rock and Steve Austin) at some point in early 2003. The child-friendly gimmick was a marketing dream and WWE didn't hesitate to put many Hurricane products on the market.

Official figures may not be readily available, but reports from the time do indicate that Helms was a big merch man and that was one of the reasons he was regularly featured in prominent positions on Raw.