Wrestling Merchandise Risks
By Scott Keith on 15 April 2024
Good morning Mr. Keith, hope all is well. As both a watcher of WWE and AEW but haven't bought wrestling Merch probably since my last ECW show in 99, I don't really know where they state and quality of creative merchandise is these days, so i''l leave that open to the blog.
But it did lead me down a rabbit hole into a question. One of the reasons, theories, etc. that they never turned Cena heel is the merch money. But i think in that era, as long as his merch looked cool, people still would have bought it. Ok maybe not in the same numbers. The horrible decision to unmask Rey Mysterio meant they couldn't sell many masks, but WCW wasn't exactly selling them and promoting them much to begin with.
So my question is, was turning Hulk Hogan heel, in 1996, the biggest merchandise risk? And on top of that, is it the best case of reward outweighing the risk in the end? They sold, and continue to, more nWo shirts then Hulk Hogan shirts in all of WCW
Cena also reportedly didn't want to turn heel because of his Make a Wish commitments, as he continues to prove that he's a better human being than any of us will ever dream of being.
But yeah, the Hogan turn was a huge risk and the reward definitely outweighed the risk. That being said, WWE is still making money off Austin 3:16 shirts today, so I'm kind of astonished that WCW wasn't able to monetize one of the biggest merchandise brands in wrestling history into something that could offset their gigantic losses. Hell, the nWo was so big that even WWE is still making money off it today.