Based on usage frequency and event prominence, these are the 5 biggest poster boys – literally – in WWE history, with a No. 1 you might not expect.
WWE Clash of Champions, the first Raw-exclusive pay-per-view of the New Era, drops on Sunday and has certainly been touting itself as the start of a fresh chapter. The promotional poster for Clash of Champions definitely adds to the New Era feel, as champions Kevin Owens, Charlotte, Rusev, and the New Day all make their first PPV poster appearances.
It felt weird to not see Roman Reigns or John Cena on a poster and got us thinking: whose face have we seen the most in promoting WWE’s PPV history?
The PPV poster is a hallowed tradition in the WWE, from the original supercard promotional posters to the more stylized marketing tools they are today. To earn a spot on one means you’ve reached the top of the mountain in the company, either as a champion or in a storyline worth capturing everyone’s attention at a major event.
So, who are the biggest poster boys in WWE history? To objectively find out, we created a few rules to figure it out scientifically.
After hours of research and a vicious love-hate relationship with an iPhone calculator, here are the Top 5. The man at No. 1 might surprise you – he sure did surprise us.
5. Steve Austin, 79.93 points
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin tops a lot of people’s lists as the best pro wrestler ever, but he only slides in at No. 5 here. The reason? Austin rose to prominence pretty late in his career and his run on top simply didn’t last that long. Due to an early retirement, Stone Cold only spent 6 years atop the WWF/WWE. And a lot of those 6 years were lost due to injury.
Add those factors up and he simply didn’t put in the time to be featured on that many posters. Basically, when Austin was around, he was the main draw. He just wasn’t always around.
Still, the Rattlesnake featured on 17 posters, starting with his first appearance for Survivor Series 1996. His career total included four 10-pointers, tied for the most ever: his iconic 1998 Royal Rumble poster, the 1999 Rumble, 1999 SummerSlam, and 2000 Survivor Series.
Austin also had the fourth-best single year according to our math. His white-hot 1999 saw him with the two aforementioned appearances plus a split Wrestlemania poster for a single-year total of 21.67 points.
4. The Rock, 85.6 points
No surprise to see The Rock crack the Top 5.
It is a surprise how he did it, though, with a late-career renaissance fueling a large number of his points. Think about it: during his first run, Rock had to deal with every other Attitude Era megastar for poster space. He still held his own, appearing on 11 posters between 1998 and when he left the company in 2003.
But after 8 years away, the Brahma Bull returned with a vengeance in 2011, to be featured on six more posters in the next three years. Getting into a multi-year feud with Peak John Cena will do that for you.
In total, the Rock landed on 17 posters, just like Austin. He just made his posters count a little more, including four 10-pointers at 1999 Survivor Series, 2001 SummerSlam, 2002 Royal Rumble, and 2013 Royal Rumble. He also shared a Big Four poster with just one other person six times, which was a sneaky way to build up points. Other people, like Hulk Hogan, suffered big time by having to share those posters with three other people or more.
3. John Cena, 133.49 points
It’s a huge points jump from The Rock to John Cena, who’s had a number of things work in his favor.
One, he’s been around forever. Sticking near the main event scene for 14 straight years affords you lots of poster opportunities. Two, Cena was undoubtedly the guy during some really lean times for the WWE in the late 2000s, which meant he got trotted out onto a lot of posters.
Cena’s totals: 39 posters, the second-most ever. Three 10-pointers (2004 Royal Rumble, 2006 Wrestlemania, 2008 Survivor Series), the fourth-most ever. And he boasts the single best year of anybody: Cena’s 2006 racked up 25.83 points. That came on the strength of appearing on New Year’s Revolution, Wrestlemania, and Unforgiven posters alone. He then added shared posters for Vengeance and Survivor Series to cap a dominant points-earning performance.
In terms of sheer ubiquity, Cena’s 2011 is also impressive. Even though he shared many of them, he appeared on six total posters that year. It ties the single-year poster record, with Brock Lesnar also appearing on six posters in 2015.
You can bet Cena isn’t done headlining yet. And that’s good for him, because he’s in a dead heat with the next man on the list.
2. Triple H, 136.9 points
Talk about things working in your favor. When you run creative and are married to the most powerful woman in the company, you tend to find your way into the spotlight as you please.
Few can match Triple H’s longevity in WWE history. His constant character reinvention has allowed him to weave in and out of main event storylines for two decades. You can see that in the fact he’s been on at least one PPV poster every year since 1998 with only three exceptions (2004, 2012-13).
He and Cena are indeed neck-and-neck, which will be an interesting rivalry to see develop as each continues to compete. Triple H actually owns two fewer total poster appearances than Cena at 37. But Trips often had the advantage of splitting a poster with just Shawn Michaels or headlining minor PPVs alone.
Interestingly, Triple H only headlined a Big Four poster twice in his career: the 2004 Royal Rumble as world champ and 2007 SummerSlam when he returned from injury. Still, for as long as The Game has been around, there’s one man who even he can’t touch when it comes to promotional prominence.
1. The Undertaker, 171.48 points
The Deadman rises.
Honestly, this result surprised us at first. Undertaker has never been the unquestioned No. 1 guy in the company. He broke in during the tail end of Hulk Hogan’s peak babyface run. He endured as a solid piece while Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels headlined in the pre-Attitude Era. He then played an integral role in that era, but nobody would put him ahead of Austin or The Rock in popularity. Cena, Lesnar, Punk, Bryan – all names that later took the marquee, while the Undertaker never stood atop the mountain alone.
Yet, we shouldn’t be surprised at all. The Undertaker has committed more than a quarter century to WWE. Thanks to the very nature of his character, he’s been been a model of consistency for those 25 years and the numbers agree.
He’s appeared on 43 posters, the most ever. He scored a solo Big Four poster four times, tied for the most ever. He had the third-best single year ever in 1994. That year, he appeared prominently in the Royal Rumble poster, then had SummerSlam and Survivor Series all to himself. Considering WWE went with no wrestlers at all for King of the Ring and Wrestlemania that year, Undertaker appeared on 100% of the possible posters the company put out in 1994.
Now consider just last year, when he appeared on four posters in 2015, more than two decades after that banner 1994. Truly a consistently incredible promotional run, proving the Undertaker will continue to have drawing power for as long as he can wrestle.
Research Fun Facts
Here are a few facts from WWE’s history of pay-per-view posters.
And, lastly, the poster that made us laugh the hardest in all the research: Bragging Rights 2009. That one features nine legitimate, first-ballot WWE Hall of Famers…and M.V.P. Gotta love wrestling.
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