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BBL editorial
Headline: Ranking the Top 25 Raw Superstars Ever
By Wade Keller, Torch editor
Originally Published: December 12, 2007
PWTorch Newsletter #1002

On Monday, Vince McMahon named himself the Greatest Raw Superstar of all-time, but for storyline reasons and to avoid the headache of actually having to pick one person. So, who would truly rank as the top WWE Superstar of the Raw era? I don't think anyone would take offense to Steve Austin being named that person, and I think most people would agree he qualifies. In fact, there may be no Raw today if Steve Austin didn't come along when he did. Rock may not have become The Rock without Austin to learn from, play off of, and eventually feud with. The following are my picks for the top ten Raw Superstars of its 15 year history, with 15 honorable mentions.

(1) Steve Austin: Even though he didn't log as many years in the ring as several other contenders for this honor, he might be ahead of everyone except Vince McMahon in terms of TV time. During the lean ratings years, when Nitro was dominating Raw in the TV ratings, WWE found that when Austin was on, people switched away from Nitro. They rode Austin as hard as they could. There were episodes of Raw where he was in almost every segment. And it paid off. Unfortunately, it's been emulated with lesser results often since then, whether it was DX on Raw or Kurt and Karen Angle on Impact recently or Jeff Jarrett and Vince McMahon over the years.

When I think of the Raw brand, Austin is still the first person that comes to mind. Before Austin, it was a team of wrestlers trying to create an identity in the post-Hogan era. Since then, it's been an ensemble effort. Even when Austin was sharing the spotlight with other top acts, he was the definitive top star who had the most impact on ratings, most notably the comeback for Raw that put Nitro eventually out of business.

Austin, unlike most other top stars, wasn't a substantial part of any other WWE TV show, so his identity is even more tied in to Raw as a result.

(2) Shawn Michaels. Michaels get the nod over Bret Hart, The Rock, and Triple H because he's logged in the most years total of any top tier player for the Raw brand, he was around from the beginning, he's still around now, and he's put on stellar in-ring performances and been versatile in so many ways during lean times when WWE needed either a young top flight charismatic worker (volatile as he was in those early years) or a veteran main event anchor to hold things together. He was also part of the early DX which was an often underestimated factor in making the WWF more cool than the growing-stale and bloated NWO in WCW which laid the foundation for the ratings resurgence.

(3) Triple H. He gets the nod over Bret Hart and The Rock for duration of time spent as a top act on Raw. Unlike Rock and Bret, there have been a lot of low points for Triple H where he was either overexposed or just plain lame with what he was doing. He is the last remaining main event star of the Monday Night War era working full-time on Raw. The injury hiatuses probably kept him fresher than he'd be had he been around non-stop the last ten years.

The Rock [artist Grant Gould (c) PWTorch]

(4) The Rock. Some would have him no. 2 because when he was around, he was such a megastar with big-star charisma matched over the years only by Austin, Hulk Hogan, and Ric Flair in their heydays. What keeps him from even serious consideration for the no. 1 slot is that he didn't log the years on Raw to come close to the three ahead of him, and when it comes to competing with Austin, Rock rode the wave that Austin created at first. Eventually, he was a key in sustaining Raw's momentum, but without the head-star of Austin and, for that matter, DX and Vince McMahon, Rock may have been enduring "Die, Rocky, Die" chants longer.

(5) Bret Hart. He was the most reliable, consistent star of those early Raw years. His straight-laced, technically sound "hero" character was spotlighted at an opportune time coming after the departure of Hulk Hogan in the midst of the first crest of steroid allegations and other sordid tabloid-ripe backstage scandals. His half-turn heel on the American fans was one of the most novel angles of the '90s, and it really let Bret shine on the mic in a way he never had before. Being double-crossed set in motion the creation of the Mr. McMahon character, so he should get shared credit for that positive considering it was the outrage over him being "screwed" in Canada, based on his Canadian pride, that made it such a big deal......

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