WWE News: John Cena, CM Punk, Others Among Most Influential Athletes on Twitter

Twitter is everywhere in the WWE. 

Some like it, some hate it, and some don’t really care either way. Regardless of where you stand, though, you’re definitely going to notice that the WWE has gone Twitter crazy over the last six months or so. 

Whenever you turn on Raw or Smackdown, you can plan on seeing about a million different references to the social networking site, the primary goal of which is to promote the WWE product and get the company some free publicity and recognition. 

And guess what? It appears to be working, because a number of WWE superstars and divas (and some former stars or TV personalities) are among the “most influential athletes on Twitter.” 

From fanpagelist.com, here are the “Klout” rankings of the following WWE stars who made the top 100: 

• No. 2: John Cena
• No. 8: CM Punk
• No. 13: Zack Ryder
• No. 25: Chris Jericho
• No. 29: Shawn Michaels
• No. 36: Eve Torres
• No. 37: Randy Orton
• No. 43: The Miz
• No. 48: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin
• No. 52: Jim Ross
• No. 59: Kelly Kelly
• No. 64: Dolph Ziggler
• No. 68: David Otunga
• No. 70: Joey Styles
• No. 73: Natalya
• No. 74: Brie Bella
• No. 75: Nikki Bella
• No. 77: Beth Phoenix
• No. 79: Kofi Kingston
• No. 81: Daniel Bryan
• No. 87: Santino Marella
• No. 97: AJ 

Oddly enough, I believe I follow every single one of these superstars on Twitter, so it’s interesting to see just how much of an impact they make on the social networking site. 

I am one of those people who doesn’t particularly care for Twitter (my tweeting is pretty limited), but I especially don’t like it becoming a big part of the WWE. 

That being said, the WWE’s constant push of Twitter is definitely working, as 22 of the top 100 most influential athletes on the site come from the WWE. 

What exactly does that accomplish in the long run? I’m not sure, but it does give the WWE some free publicity for its product. 

I bet that Vince McMahon loves this news because it’s obvious that he has played a huge role in the WWE’s Twitter movement, or else we wouldn’t even see anything about the site on Raw or Smackdown. 

To be honest, though, I’m not even sure what to make of these rankings because they don’t seem to be based on any set formula. 

Guys like Punk and Ryder do tweet a lot, and their tweets often serve some sort of purpose. But others on this list, like The Miz and Santino, don’t really tweet all that much and don’t seem to make as big of an impact on Twitter as their spot on this list would indicate. 

Oh well. In the end, it’s just Twitter, anyway.

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-to-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring or Twitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.