10 WWE Wrestlers That Changed Everything
2. The Rock
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson holds an exceptional place in the legacy of WWE, in that he is quite comfortably the biggest crossover mainstream star that the company has ever seen. Hulk Hogan may have been a wrestling icon who appeared sporadically outside of the squared circle, but The Rock is one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, and many think of him more as a moviestar than a wrestler now.
Whilst this does make wrestling feel like a starting point for his movie career, he has at least proven that there is an easy ability to crossover. We've seen wrestlers like Edge, Batista and even John Cena make firm ventures into acting and they all owe that to the path that Dwayne Johnson set.
However, he also - like Steve Austin - brought back a sense of the mainstream wrestling star. He was a top performer during one of the company's most significant periods and delivered on a tonne of attention for the company. The reason he could cross over to the movie business so well is because of the number of fans he brought to WWE.