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HOW WWE MONETIZED WRESTLEMANIA BEFORE PPV, WHO WAS HERB, DENNIS RODMAN AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2016-04-01 10:00:00

 

In the days before PPV, how did WWE make their revenue on Wrestlemania?  The show would be one and done.

There were a few ways.  Obviously, the live gate and merchandise.  For Wrestlemania 2, WWE sold the rights to the event to Showtime, where it aired on rotation there for months.  There was also closed circuit locations, which aired the show live as it happened.  Where I lived in NYC, I know there were a number of different theaters and colleges that played the show that way.  There were also the video rights as WWE released the show on VHS.  At retail, tapes at the time could be priced in the $100 range.   A lot of mom and pop video stores made lots of cash on rentals of WWE tapes at the time.  Wrestlemania was no exception.

I'm watching Wrestlemania 2 and there's a guy named Herb with no explanation.  Any insight?  Was this guy a WWE character?

No.  Herb was an actor named Jon Menick who played a character for a series of "Burger King" commercials with the story being that he was the one person in the world who had never tasted a Whopper, the chain's signature burger.  The commercial asks viewers to look for Herb at their local Burger Kings as they were trying to find him and if you did, you won a prize.  Eventually, the commercials ended with Herb trying a Whopper.  WWE was just playing off the success of the campaign.

Why did ICE-T appear at Wrestlemania 16?

The idea was Ice-T was rapping his friend Godfather to the ring to use Ice-T's street credibility to add to the Godfather character.  It was a smart idea.

Is it true WWE tried to get Dennis Rodman before WCW brought him in?

Yes, but WCW offered more, so that's where Rodman went.

Why do you think we don't see baseball players, football players, etc. wrestling like we did in WCW?

It's most likely because the teams stepped in and stopped such practices from happening.

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