WWE Superstars
WWE Superstars, or simply Superstars, is a professional wrestling television program that was produced by WWE that originally aired on WGN America in the United States and later broadcast on the WWE Network. It debuted on April 16, 2009 and ended its domestic broadcasting on April 7, 2011. After the final domestic TV broadcast, the show moved to an Internet broadcast format while maintaining a traditional television broadcast in international markets. The show featured mid-to-low card WWE Superstars in a format similar to the former shows Heat and Velocity which served the same purpose. "Enhancement talent" bouts also happened often. Big names such as John Cena, Randy Orton, The Undertaker, and Triple H appeared on the show at its beginning.
On December 19, 2008, WWE and WGN America announced an agreement to create a new weekly, one-hour prime time series entitled WWE Superstars that was to debut in April 2009. Sunday on WGN America. Until early 2010, the replay also aired on WGN-TV. However, it was removed, hence eliminating distribution of the show from the Canadian fanbase.Superstars had its debut show on April 16, 2009.
On March 17, 2011, WGN America announced that they would not renew their domestic broadcasts rights to WWE Superstars, and the last episode they would air would be shown on April 7, 2011. Online reports stated that the network did not renew the series because it didn't live up to its expectations. WWE.com aired the show from April 14 to September 22, 2011 and again from October 6, 2011 to September 13, 2012. The show continued to be produced for international broadcasting until November 25, 2016.
On November 28, 2016, it was announced that Superstars had been canceled by WWE and would be replaced on the WWE Network by 205 Live. WWE Main Event would serve as the complementary show featuring Raw and SmackDown talents (and would later replace WWE Superstars for international markets).
Top 5 WWE Superstars
1. The Undertaker
Mark William Calaway (born March 24, 1965), is an American retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his career in WWE from 1990 to 2020 under the ring name The Undertaker.
Calaway began his career in 1987, working as various gimmicks for World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) and other affiliate promotions, and he became USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion and WCWA Texas Heavyweight Champion during this time. After signing with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1989, he had a brief stint in the mid-card as "Mean" Mark Callous, before joining the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 1990.
Calaway was rebranded as "The Undertaker" in the WWF, and gained significant mainstream popularity as a horror-themed, macabre entity who employed scare tactics and held links to the supernatural. The longest-tenured wrestler in company history at 30 years, The Undertaker was one of the most prominent figures of the Attitude Era, a boom period in the company's business in the latter 1990s. His character transitioned into a biker in the early 2000s, before returning to a refined version of his previous gimmick in 2004. The Undertaker is heavily associated with WWE's flagship annual event, WrestleMania, where he became known for The Streak, a series of 21 straight victories. He is also known for his pairing with his in-storyline half-brother Kane, with whom he has
alternatively feuded or teamed as The Brothers of Destruction since 1997. Within the company, The Undertaker has won the WWF/E Championship four times, the World Heavyweight Championship three times, the Hardcore Championship once and the World Tag Team Championship six times. He is also one of WWE's most prolific pay-per-view performers, headlining several pay-per-view events, including WrestleMania on five occasions.[b][10]
Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time,[11] The Undertaker retired from professional wrestling in 2020, and made a farewell appearance at that year's Survivor Series event, 30 years to the day after he made his debut for the company. Although he remains retired, he is still signed with WWE.
2. Stone Cold Steve Austin
Steve Austin (born Steven James Anderson, December 18, 1964; later Steven James Williams) is an American television host, actor, and retired professional wrestler, who competed under the name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential professional wrestlers of all time. Austin was integral to the success of the Attitude Era in the WWF, an industry boom period in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Austin started his professional wrestling career after playing college football at the University of North Texas. He became "Stunning" Steve Austin in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) from 1991 to 1995, using the character of a handsome man who relied on his good looks and flowing blonde hair. After a brief stint in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in late 1995, he signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) as
The Ringmaster. The following year, having grown a goatee and shaved his head, he was repackaged as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. After this character change, he gained significant mainstream popularity as a brash, vulgar, beer-drinking antihero who routinely defied the establishment and his boss, WWE chairman Vince McMahon. Austin thus became the "poster boy" of the Attitude Era. He was forced to retire from in-ring competition in 2003 due to multiple knee injuries and also a serious neck injury. Throughout the rest of 2003 and 2004, he was featured as an on-screen authority figure of Raw.
Austin held 19 championships throughout his wrestling career. He is a six-time WWF Champion, a two-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, a four-time WWF Tag Team Champion and a one-time Million Dollar Champion in WWE. In WCW, he was a two-time WCW World Television Champion, a two-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion, a one-time WCW World Tag Team Champion, and a one-time NWA World Tag Team Champion. In addition, he is the fifth-ever WWE Triple Crown Champion, the winner of the 1996 WWF King of the Ring tournament, and a record three-time Royal Rumble winner. Austin headlined multiple WWE pay-per-view events, including three WrestleManias (XIV, XV, and X-Seven). He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009.
Following his wrestling career, Austin started a podcast named The Stone Cold Podcast and released an IPA beer called the "Broken Skull IPA". Austin hosted a reality competition series, Steve Austin's Broken Skull Challenge, from 2014 to 2017 and has been the star of Straight Up Steve Austin since 2019.
3. The Rock
Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor, producer, businessman, and retired professional wrestler. Regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as WWE) for eight years prior to pursuing an acting career. His films have grossed over $3.5 billion in North America and over $10.5 billion worldwide, making him one of the world's highest-grossing and highest-paid actors.
Johnson was a college football player at the University of Miami, with whom he won a national championship in 1991. He aspired to have a professional career in football and entered the 1995 NFL Draft, but went undrafted. He signed with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League (CFL), but was cut from the team in his first season. Shortly after, he began training as a professional wrestler.
An honorary member of the Anoa'i family, his father Rocky Johnson and maternal grandfather Peter Maivia were both professional wrestlers, so Johnson secured a contract with the WWF in 1996. He rose to prominence after developing the gimmick of a charismatic, boastful, trash-talker. He won his first WWF Championship in 1998, becoming the promotion's first world champion of African-American descent. Johnson helped usher in the Attitude Era, an industry boom period in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
4. Shawn Michaels
Michael Shawn Hickenbottom (born July 22, 1965), better known by his ring name Shawn Michaels, is an American retired professional wrestler, actor, and television presenter. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he is known by the nicknames "Heartbreak Kid", "The Showstopper", and "Mr. WrestleMania".
Michaels wrestled consistently for WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), from 1988 until a back injury forced his first retirement in 1998. He performed in non-wrestling roles for the next two years and returned to the ring for a match in his own Texas Wrestling Academy (TWA) in 2000. Michaels resumed his wrestling career with WWE in 2002 and retired ceremoniously in 2010, before being assigned as a trainer in 2016. He returned for a final match in 2018.
In the WWF/WWE, Michaels headlined pay-per-view events between 1989 and 2018, main-eventing the company's flagship annual event, WrestleMania, five times. He was the co-founder and original leader of the successful stable, D-Generation X. Michaels also wrestled in the American Wrestling Association (AWA), where he founded The Midnight Rockers with Marty Jannetty in 1985. After winning the AWA World Tag Team Championship twice, the team continued to the WWF as The Rockers and had a high-profile breakup in January 1992. Within the year, Michaels twice challenged for the WWF Championship and won his first Intercontinental Championship, heralding his arrival as one of the industry's premier singles stars.
Michaels is a four-time world champion, having held the WWF Championship three times and WWE's World Heavyweight Championship once. He is also a two-time Royal Rumble winner (and the first man to win the match as the number one entrant), the first WWF Grand Slam Champion and the fourth WWF Triple Crown Champion, as well as a two time WWE Hall of Fame inductee (2011 as singles wrestler and 2019 as part of D-Generation X). Michaels won the Pro Wrestling Illustrated "Match of the Year" reader vote a record eleven times, and his match against John Cena on April 23, 2007, was ranked by WWE as the best match ever aired on the company's flagship Raw program.
5. Ric Flair
Richard Morgan Fliehr (born February 25, 1949), better known as Ric Flair, is an American professional wrestling manager and retired professional wrestler.
Regarded by multiple peers and journalists as the greatest professional wrestler of all time, Flair had a career that spanned almost 40 years. He is noted for his tenures with Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later WWE) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). Much of his career was spent in JCP and WCW, where he won numerous titles. Since the mid-1970s, he has used the moniker "The Nature Boy". A major pay-per-view attraction throughout his career, Flair headlined the premier annual
NWA/WCW event, Starrcade, on ten occasions, while also co-headlining its WWF counterpart, WrestleMania, in 1992, after winning that year's Royal Rumble. PWI awarded him their Wrestler of the Year award a record six times, while Wrestling Observer Newsletter named him the Wrestler of the Year (an award named after him and Lou Thesz) a record eight times. The first two-time WWE Hall of Fame inductee, first inducted with the class of 2008 for his individual career and again with the class of 2012 as a member of The Four Horsemen, he is also a member of the NWA Hall of Fame, and the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.
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