I've watched some of those old shows back. when Orndorff was a babyface, he'd get really good reactions too.
crazy to think that out of Orndorff, Piper, Andre, and Macho Man, that Orndorff would be the one to sell the most tickets.
Orndorff was tied to Hogan for the better part of 3 years, with their actual feud being the culmination of that association.
People also forget that Roddy Piper was originally
Orndorff's manager, that Orndorff was the other man in that WrestleMania I tag match, and that the finish to that match set up Orndorff's initial face turn.
Dude was a big, big deal in the mid-1980s, and was associated with Hogan (in the WWF) longer than anyone else you named. It really isn't that surprising when you think about it.
Btw I truly do not believe that the money from those 3 manias compares to the money drawn by Vince and Austin from 97 to 01...
For one, everyone who named inflation as a factor is correct. Meltzer's list probably looks radically different when inflation is taken into account.
But the other factor I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that Meltzer seems to only be counting in-ring feuds as "drawing" feuds. Yes, Austin/McMahon carried the WWF for 2 solid years at least and probably drew more money than any feud Meltzer lists, but McMahon almost always fought Austin via proxies
in the ring (Dude Love, The Undertaker, Kane, The Rock), which fractures the actual draw numbers. If you added them all together and adjusted for inflation, though, then Austin/McMahon would probably be number 1.
