Shane Helms Reveals Interesting Stat He Was Told About His WWE Merchandise Sales

In the modern era, cruiserweights and high flyers are nothing new to wrestling fans. Stars like Will Ospreay, AJ Styles, and Ricochet have made their names known all over the world in recent years due to their high-flying abilities. However, before any of those wrestlers ever laced up their boots, there were other trailblazers paving the road for them — Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Billy Kidman, and of course, Shane Helms, perhaps best known as WWE's resident superhero, The Hurricane — a character who was never a world champion, but who is still fondly remembered by wrestling fans to this day.

Helms has been reminiscing about the old gimmick on Twitter recently, marking the Hurricane's 21st anniversary, and yesterday, he revealed an interesting fact from that time period that demonstrates the character's popularity.

"I was told that I was the first solo act under 200 lbs that moved real merch," Helms wrote. "Then Rey came in and BOOM, merch wasn't just for the big guys anymore."

Rey Mysterio, who Helms worked with back in World Championship Wrestling, came to WWE in 2002 and quickly grew into a household name, winning multiple world championships and becoming one of the most highly decorated cruiserweights in wrestling history. Helms, meanwhile, enjoyed runs with the WWE Cruiserweight, Hardcore, European, and World Tag Team Championships, and has made sporadic appearances for the company since, most notably appearing in the 2018 and 2021 Royal Rumble matches. He reached arguably the peak of his popularity in 2003, when (with some help from "Stone Cold" Steve Austin) he defeated The Rock on an episode of "WWE Raw."