Thread: Better Wrestler #93
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Old 12-29-2017, 08:43 PM   #105
Mr. Nerfect
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by #1-wwf-fan View Post
Batista didn't set the world on fire but I can't think of a single way that you could argue he wasn't a bigger draw than Benoit. Numbers were down across the board as soon as Benoit won the title and got better when they put it on Batista.

Batista's WrestleMania coronation drew more than Benoit's the year before.

The buyrate for the Backlash PPV with Benoit making his first defense dipped from the previous year and then rose back up the next year with Batista making his first defense.

Raw ratings improved slightly with Batista as champion over Benoit.

Everything points to Batista being a bigger draw.
I wasn't thinking about Benoit's World Heavyweight Title run, to be honest. I was thinking about how many more people gave a fuck about Benoit in WCW/WWF from about 1996-2000 than have ever watched a Batista match. Benoit may not have been the top guy, but he's always been significant and heavily featured, and he was actually quite important during the WWF's 2000. It's kind of swept under due to the vanilla midget/size/lack of personality stuff that was always an excuse to keep him out of the top role.

I think you can argue about whether or not that proved to be accurate or whether it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I was basically thinking about how more important Benoit is overall, especially when you add in stuff like his skill, his classic matches, his legacy, etc.
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