Proto-Attitude is one of my fav eras...

[noleafclover1980]

I've decided to call the period between The New Generation era and full on Attitude this. They really started coming into their own... plus they threw some bat **** crazy stuff out to see if it would stick also. You had Paul Bearer managing Mankind, who also hung out w/ Goldust and called him "Mommy", Bret Hart turning against America, "The Loose Cannon" Brian Pillman... etc.. just a lot of fun stuff as they started testing the waters more.

[MichaelMartini]

96-97 were awesome years.

[Yami Daimao]

100% agreed.

[JMA]

I loved the creepy Goldust/Mankind relationship.

Turning Goldust face was a stupid, stupid move. Such a great heel.

[Bang Bang Bart]

Watching back at it, it was fantastic TV. Not too raunchy, but just with enough edgy material to keep viewers engaged.

[AndyUK]

Love the era. 96 and 97 were great years, I agree. You still had plenty of good workers on the roster, like HBK, Bret and Owen and there were some terrific storylines, that didn't go into soap opera territory.

Out of the Attitude Era, 1998 is the only one that has it beat for me. That time period was a lot better than what followed the first year of the Attitude Era.

[Deleted]

97, yes. It wasn't Russo-tastic yet, and the quality of the shows were routinely very good post-WM.

96? No thanks. Shawn Michaels prancing his way to the ring like a gay Chip-N-Dales dancer and beating guys twice his size with a kick wasn't my idea of entertainment, but maybe I'm in the minority here.

[Jiren]

I'm not overly fond of 96 as a whole but it got better post Summerslam when:

- Austin was on the rise
- Bret Hart returns
- Sid
- Taker gets a new look/Persona

But 97 was all round awesome

[The Ichi]

One of my biggest regrets is taking a hiatus from wrestling from 1995 to 1998. I missed some GOOD stuff.

[rnrk supports BLM]

This is a fascinating period, and one of my favorite eras (albeit it was too short and transitional to really be an era, more like an experimental phase) in pro wrestling as well.

What I really enjoyed was that while WWF was begining to shift towards being an edgier product, they were still keeping the stylized, over-the-top, cartoony sensibilities of the New Generation.

A character like '96 Mankind would've been too frightening for the peak of the New Generation, but also too absurd for the Attitude Era; there was a very narrow window in there where it was played as completely plausible to have a deranged, psychopathic lunatic brought in as a new pro wrestler, and I thought it was great.

Even babyface Shawn Michaels, as whitebread as he seems compared to what's to come, always felt like he had a bit more bite to him than Bret Hart. He was still a pompous, full-of-himself dick who'd come to the ring singing about his sexiness, he'd take time to showboat and taunt his opponents during his matches, and he wasn't adverse to smacking the heels around with chairs if they'd tried to cheat first.

[Son of a Pregnant Dog]

Oct 22, 2010 18:09:06 GMT -5 @conebone69 said:

96? No thanks. Shawn Michaels prancing his way to the ring like a gay Chip-N-Dales dancer and beating guys twice his size with a kick wasn't my idea of entertainment, but maybe I'm in the minority here.

You're not alone. I was a teenager then and I didn't like the image of WWF's top guys at the time: a prancing male stripper, and a greasy guy in pink spandex. It was 1996, the hair-metal band look was dead for many years but not in WWF!

I lived in the Philadelphia area and had the luck of watching ECW at the time, and I liked it so much more since everyone in there looked like they came in right off of streets I knew (and many of them did) instead of out a Poison video. Oh, and the awesome violent storytelling and wrestling skill too- but I was 100% not aware of the craft of wrestling then so I didn't see it very deeply.

But yeah, to get things back to topic- I couldn't love the 'pre-Attitude' era until Bret and Shawn were gone (and when that happened, we officially went into the true Attitude era.)