I'll jump on this the instant I get some free time, awesome to see that there's a well-researched mod in the works from the era I personally was the most invested in wrestling.
I'll double crackerjack's sentiment about the popularity thing. I mean, I haven't played the mod yet, but from what was said I recognized several bigger annoyances I've encountered in some of the other real world mods, e.g. WWE dropping the brand split a couple of months in every time and so forth. It's gotten to the point where I usually just edit the databases so they start with no brand split to begin with and with less championships.
1. Chris Jericho 2. Daniel Bryan 3. Bret Hart 4. Steve Austin 5. Kurt Angle