The belt doesn't make the man, the man makes the belt. Or so the saying goes in the WWE. The distinction of being WWE Champion is something that wrestlers aspire towards all their life. In truth, it is just the start of the work and pressure. Being Champion means that you are the focus of the entire WWE, the man who is responsible for drawing the crowds. Succeed bringing money in and the bosses (and your peers) will love you, but fail on top and there is nowhere to hide. Watching numbers go down when you are the main attraction can be one of the most soul destroying things for a wrestler to ever go through - to the point that some champions have begged Vince McMahon to get the belt off of them. This list will have some stark revelations. Ultimately a wrestler's job is to engage the crowd. The sad thing is, some of the talent on this list are the best wrestlers in WWE, ironically the least interesting wrestlers if the numbers are to be believed. Whereas the like of Austin and Rock had a magnetism to their drawing ability, the more in-ring based talent have struggled to maintain sales in tickets, ppv buys and merchandise. It's proof that Vince McMahon is correct in his selling of sports entertainment over pro wrestling. There is of course circumstances to take into consideration, some talent have cited that their run came in a down cycle. That's fair enough, although irrepressible talent like Austin would have spiked numbers whenever the period you might argue. All that matters as Champion at the end of the day is business generated. WWE is a company like anything else, the whole point is to make money. The measure of a Champion in the industry is buys. A true champ carries the company, ensuring everyone gets rich off their reign. With this in mind, Whatculture will list the worst drawing champions, determining the Champions who just didn't cut the standard in WWE history. In analyzing this, we need to look at guys who were given the mantle with a championship role in mind. Transitional champions (such as Mankind or Kane) never really had the belt long enough for us to judge - instead they were a prop in the bigger picture. The era also has to be considered. In the 80's, the WWF was starting small and expanding. Growth was inevitable. The plateaus of the mid 90's and post attitude era are going to be far more susceptible to crashes in drawing, the pockets of time that had to follow sustained periods of immense growth. Ultimately the WWE title is a prop, and some guys just couldn't do anything with it. So here it is, the 10 worst drawing WWE Champions of all time...
