Who is the Most Important WWE Superstar of All Time? Cena vs. Hogan vs. Sammartino

Who is the best wrestler of all time? Ric Flair? Shawn Michaels? Bret Hart? Kenta Kobashi? Misuhara Misawa? I’m sure you can make the case for all of them based on their great body of “workrate” matches and intense competitive personalities. Fine, there could be some sort of objective criteria by which you could measure and rank these men – I’ve yet to truly see it, but I’m sure it’s out there.

Sometimes, though, we don’t give the proper respect to what it means to be a WWE “superstar”. No less subjective than having exceptional workrate, being an entertaining superstar in the WWE is the actual true goal most aspire to in the professional wrestling industry. And there are three transcendent superstars who carried the WWF/E on their shoulders for at least 10 years each, against all critical logic and fandom appreciation: Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan and John Cena. These are easily the best superstars in WWE history, but who has the glory of being THE most important?

The 411mania Wrestling 3-Way Dance matches up three opponents in an intellectual battle every week. The biggest advantages and disadvantages of each contender will be highlighted before a final ranking will declare the ultimate winner. This week’s 3-Way Dance:

Who is the Most Important WWE Superstar of All Time?

Bruno Sammartino vs. Hulk Hogan vs. John Cena

The Best Superstar Quality of…

John Cena = The Fans.

Coming from the first generation of Rock ‘n Wrestling-era super-fan kids who grew up to become pro-wrestlers, Cena had the incredible foresight to absorb the irrational anger towards him by half of the live audience and channel it into energetic performances that fuelled this rabid fandom, thus providing a vibrant environment for his contemporaries to work in, and giving countless wrestling legends some of the most memorable matches of their careers.

That fabled and spirited fan reaction to Cena would have destroyed the ego of even the most popular superstars in history, like The Rock, HBK, HHH, Sting, Luger, and especially Hogan. To Cena’s enormous credit, he miraculously understood how to cater to, and infuriate, smark Gen-X males, their wives, and especially their children. This savvy decision to not try and be “cool” for everyone was in fact the exact thing needed to engage with everyone in the audience.

Whereas Hogan was equally as hated as he was loved during his career, it was under the traditional dynamic that the WWE had been presenting since the Sammartino days. But to be the biggest face and heel simultaneously in the company is a unique solution to the growing millennial-era problem affecting all pop culture: how do you keep fans engaged with your product in today’s social media instantaneous news cycle? All any wrestling fan in the world wanted to talk about for years was John Cena, and this template is Cena’s true legacy that will be repeated in pro-wrestling companies for many years to come.

Hulk Hogan = Nostalgia.

There’s no way little kids are watching old WWF matches on the Network today and being as enraptured with Hulk Hogan as the fans were at the time. And of course, appetites change, but Hogan is such a specifically powerful touchstone of 80s kitsch that it’s hard not to love him, in theory, despite all the evidence to the contrary, whether it’s the offensive things he may say in private or the multitude of terrible in-ring performances he produced over the years.

Those 80s are such a bizarre period of cheesy rah-rah super-heroics that it feels so consequence-free compared to the complexity and over-analysis of modern day pop culture, so if you lived through that time you can’t help but revel in that haze of violent happiness like a sober person remembering what it was like to get high.

This powerful nostalgia keeps you in the memory of fans forever, and will most likely continue long past Hogan and all of us are dead. None of us have watched a Babe Ruth baseball game but we’re conditioned to associate excellence in professional baseball with the standard set by this superstar over 100 years ago. Love it or hate it, Hogan will be the name that carries this weight for professional wrestling in perpetuity.

Bruno Sammartino = That Look.

Bruno certainly wasn’t a ring technician, great talker or layered performer, but damn if he doesn’t look badass. He legit looks like reformed tough who used to rough people up out back, like Marv from Sin City mixed with Luca Brasi from the Godfather.

Neither the yellow-clad, skull-et, high-waist trunk, fu manchu moustachioed Hogan, or the poor man’s Matt Damon, hip-hop marine John Cena, look like a legit badass who could beat up anybody, whereas, Bruno’s barrel-chested, pug-faced, fro-flying, bruiser style, or even the slicked-back, steel mill grandpa years, always made him look like the baddest dude around.

The Worst Superstar Quality of…

Bruno Sammartino = Those matches.

Ouch. There’s a reason the WWE isn’t producing a best of Bruno DVD set anytime soon. Next to collections for Hacksaw Jim Duggan, the Bushwackers, or Dolph Ziggler, you’re not going to find a more unwatchable set of matches ever collected than a Bruno Sammartino “best of”.

I mean, I get that you don’t have to be a 5-star machine to be the most important superstar of all time, but you kinda gotta still want to watch the guy wrestle.

Sit through this, I dare you!

Hulk Hogan = Money.

The more you know about the Hulk Hogan brand the more it becomes all about money. It can either be the physical kind, like that phat stack he won in his sex tape lawsuit against Gawker, or the theoretical “money” used in the carny vernacular that somehow justifies doing less on the mat because you can “pop” kids by making goofy faces.

And talk about a guy who slaps his likeness on just about anything that will sell, and that’s while forgiving his WWF authentic merch. When all is said and done, you kind of want the face that represents the history of the WWE to also not have become the face of WCW and TNA in the past just because they were willing to pay him more.

John Cena = Movies.

I’ll take his hip-hop album, but some of those movies just make him look so lame. And I’m not sure he’s particularly good in any of his WWE movies, he’s passable, and certainly as good as Hogan as an actor, but he’s being outshined by The Miz and Randy Orton on film, and that’s gonna be out there for people to scrutinize long after Cena has retired in the ring.

And then he goes and does an Amy Schumer movie followed by a Tina Fey/Amy Poehler movie – ugh. It’s one thing to do universal, kid-friendly pap like The Tooth Fairy or Mr. Nanny, but it’s a whole other embarrassment to be a go-to beefcake prop in a string of female-comedian shock-coms. His appearance in those movies is the wrestling equivalent of being Major Gunns in the WCW Misfits in Action faction.

The Final Ranking

Okay, these are all great options, but who is exactly the most important WWE superstar of all time?

#3 = Bruno Sammartino

If we must concede that today’s metrosexual, destined to live to 120, evolutionary man is a better specimen than the drag-a-woman-by-her-hair cavemen who died at 25 from a stubbed toe, then we must admit that in 2016 Bruno Sammartino ranks lower than Hogan and Cena in terms of importance and greatness as WWE/F superstar, while also recognizing his importance on the evolutionary scale. The WWWF of the Sammartino dynasty was a different time, one where you could become a superstar with two “moves” and appearances in a handful of regular venues in the Northeast, a work ethic that is outdone by even a low-level indy guy today.

Undoubtably there would be no WWE today without the foundation Bruno laid, but certainly he can’t rank higher as a superstar than Cena or Hogan culturally, critically or emotionally to anyone sane.

#2 = John Cena

I so badly want to rank Cena #1, as I honestly believe that he is the best wrestler of all time, and just seems to be an all around perfect WWE guy. As a lifetime WWE fan myself, I admire the successes and sacrifices that Cena has made as a main event superstar in the company.

However, I must hold Cena back for one simple factor: age.

Cena is still too young to have surpassed Hogan’s importance and continual impact. And although he probably has 10 years left before he’s done (most likely even 15-20), will he be the most important WWE superstar ever when all is said and done?

Business-wise, he’s more profound than Hogan, being that he had to anchor weekly live worldwide TV and monthly PPV for so many years while the audience transitioned from cable to cord-cutting. But, regardless, his name is not yet synonymous with pro-wresting, and the WWE, in the way our #1’s was and still is…

#1 = Hogan

Still, whenever I mention that I watch wrestling to someone who is not a fan, they will inevitably name-check Hogan.

Even people who I consider to be way too young to have been fans during the prime of his WWF run will know Hogan over Cena, and it’s not even close.

Every move Hogan makes reverberates on the fringe of garbage pop culture in a way that the WWE covets with a boner so hard they have 20 years of blue balls. And while this hasn’t particularly translated into respect for Hogan, he has a Kardashians way of holding onto the spotlight by his fingernails.

The only other person to penetrate the mainstream by transcending the day-to-day motions of the WWE is The Rock, but he’s a legit, Hollywood movie star. The Rock will have fans at this point who never even watched him wrestle, or don’t care that he used to wrestle, but with Hogan it still always comes back to the wrestling; his mannerisms, his phrases, all those memories – his crossover fame is all about that legendary WWF career.

So while Hogan sits on a throne of cash, he can’t be a bigger celebrity than The Rock and can’t step back into a WWE ring just yet, but he can take pride in the fact that he’s just won the 411mania Wrestling 3-Way Dance as the Most Important WWE Superstar of All Time!