The wrestling business has changed considerably since Hulk Hogan’s time, and Hogan recently looked at how how making stars is different today. Hogan was a guess on Barstool Rasslin’ and talked about how the industry has changed in terms of making stars out of talent. You can see highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:
On wrestlers not reaching the popularity he and Steve Austin hit: “Well, you gotta realize, nowadays the star of the wrestling business is the production, where back in the day you had to actually draw money to be the main event guy. It’s all about a run — how long you’ve been married? How long you going to live? How long are your kids going to behave? It’s a run… There’s a difference between being a main event guy and being an attraction, and then the difference between being an attraction and being an international phenom that has awareness internationally. There are very few guys [who had it] — Andre [The Giant] was one.”
On it being easier to make WWE stars now: “If someone gets hurt right now in the WWE, the machine is so big and the production is so slick and so sharp that they can make anybody their main event star because they’ve got this thing down to a science and thank god they do because the numbers. The way they’re doing business, WWE is on FIRE and they’re doing better now than they’ve ever had.”
