Was The Attitude Era Wall-to-Wall Wrestlecrap?

[sungod2020]

So after reading the induction with DX invading WCW(which I personally don't think was Wrestlecrap, but that's another story) got me thinking about how much crap the now highly revered Attitude Era had. Don't get me wrong, the WWF(and for a time wrestling in general with WCW) was extremely popular back then with the masses and I'd still prefer it to now(I can't even watch an hour of RAW these days), but a lot of it was pretty horrid looking back on it.


Storylines/angles(many of which that have already been inducted) I can name on the top of my head include:

-Val Venis Castration Angle

-Hawk's Battle with Alcoholism

-NWA Invasion Angle

-Mark Henry's Sexual Misadventures

-The Higher Power

-Brawl For All

-Royal Rumble 1999 and WrestleMania XV

-Naked Mideon

-Mae Young in General

And I'm sure there's many others that I forgot to name. 1999 was pretty bad and obviously had Russo's fingerprints written all over it. Not to mention the wrestling aspect(minus the main event scene) was an afterthought.

Does anybody think that time frame in wrestling is overrated? I'd say at least a little, moreso by WWE than the fans in general considering they're still relying on those stars in some way to garner attention.

What I certainly miss about the Attitude Era wasn't so much the shock value and crash TV aspect of it, but the fact that everybody had something to do, it was new and fresh at the time, was unpredictable and had a can't miss aspect to it. That's something I wish WWE can bring back, and pay more attention to the midcard.

What are your thoughts on WWF/E's most recent boom period?

[Wieners=$$$]

Apr 12, 2020 19:01:18 GMT -5 sungod2020 said:

What I certainly miss about the Attitude Era wasn't so much the shock value and crash TV aspect of it, but the fact that everybody had something to do, it was new and fresh at the time, was unpredictable and had a can't miss aspect to it. That's something I wish WWE can bring back, and pay more attention to the midcard

A lot the examples you provided were midcard storylines. Not much has changed since then to now. A lot of the "good shit" today is still relegated to the midcard, but the difference is between now and the "Attitude" era is that there where better highs. Compared to now, the wrestle crap is all over the show.

[Joe Neglia]

Apr 12, 2020 20:05:59 GMT -5 Wieners=$$$ said:

Apr 12, 2020 19:01:18 GMT -5 sungod2020 said:

What I certainly miss about the Attitude Era wasn't so much the shock value and crash TV aspect of it, but the fact that everybody had something to do, it was new and fresh at the time, was unpredictable and had a can't miss aspect to it. That's something I wish WWE can bring back, and pay more attention to the midcard

A lot the examples you provided were midcard storylines. Not much has changed since then to now. A lot of the "good shit" today is still relegated to the midcard, but the difference is between now and the "Attitude" era is that there where better highs. Compared to now, the wrestle crap is all over the show.

There was a lot of really bad stuff in the top level too, but the difference is some of those guys found a way to make things work. Anyone else, that This Is Your Life segment wouldn't have worked. Rock and Foley made it. Anyone else doing the same thing and it would have bombed and been considered trash the same way any of the later reduxes of it were.

[Wieners=$$$]

Apr 12, 2020 20:11:03 GMT -5 Joe Neglia said:

Apr 12, 2020 20:05:59 GMT -5 Wieners=$$$ said:

A lot the examples you provided were midcard storylines. Not much has changed since then to now. A lot of the "good shit" today is still relegated to the midcard, but the difference is between now and the "Attitude" era is that there where better highs. Compared to now, the wrestle crap is all over the show.

There was a lot of really bad stuff in the top level too, but the difference is some of those guys found a way to make things work. Anyone else, that This Is Your Life segment wouldn't have worked. Rock and Foley made it. Anyone else doing the same thing and it would have bombed and been considered trash the same way any of the later reduxes of it were.

The originality played a huge part in the "Attitude" era's success, to the point they ran everything that worked into the ground through to the other side, and back, several times over by now. The bad from then is also still being used too, but as a self aware joke of how stupid it was then.

[xCompackx]

I don't think anyone would say the Attitude Era had a 100% hit rate with storylines. But even going back to watch Raw, it was never boring, the crowds were passionate, and everything seemed like it had a purpose.

[thecrusherwi]

The good stuff in the Attitude Era is still incredibly good. If you fall down the rabbit hole of watching old Raws from that era, you will see some really stupid stuff, but the good stuff is great and it’s very easy to see why it hooked people.

With that being said, of the two major boom periods of WWF/E history, the Attitude Era sure hasn’t aged as well as the Hogan Golden Era.

[Toilet Paper Roll]

A lot of it was crap, but most of the crap was unexpected crap. You at the very least had your interest piqued just to see what would happen next.

It turned the wrestling world on its head. It used to be the bad guy acted bad, good guy good and theyd fight sometime. There was a template for the way things worked. Generally storylines were similar but the actors changed. Basically anything went in the Attitude Era, and even if it was dumb it held your attention.

[Malcolm]

I wouldn't call it wall to wall wrestlecrap, but I wouldn't call it wall to wall wrestlegold either.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

No, but I do think fans back then were a lot more tolerant of the bad stuff than they are now, whether it was because the good stuff was so good or just the natural passage of time and the cynicism that has been bred since, I don’t know.

Like, think of the episode of RAW where Mankind wins the world title. Also had the introduction of a one-off transvestite character used to seduce Mark Henry so Chyna can trick him into giving a man a handjob, Terri Runnels faking a miscarriage to trick D’Lo Brown into doing her dirty work, Dennis Knight being chained up in a dungeon somewhere before being brainwashed by The Undertaker and maybe one clean finish on the entire show. But because it was 1999 and society was going through a rebellious teenager phase, it was the best shit ever.

[koreycaskets]

Crap or not I LOVE the Attitude Era.

[bog]

I think with something like wrestling it's sometimes better to go with things that are relevant and popular at the time and risk maybe not holding up as well.

Yes, a lot of that shit is unwatchable now, but a lot of it was also what that Jerry Springer watching, Marilyn Manson listening crowd wanted.

Should you always listen to the fans? Maybe not
But it's good to take into account what the culture looks like.

Still, maybe it was so good just because we had people that made it work (Foley, Austin, Rock, etc)

[bob]

nope

there were some bad things like the higher power, which was the very first thing I can remember thinking that made absolutely no sense, but there was a lot of good

everyone on the roster was doing something

every match felt important for the most part

the good far out weighed the bad back then

[cabbageboy]

I think most of 1997-98 was great stuff but I am not much of a fan of 1999 regardless of how popular it might have been. The product had just become too Russo-rific. I was just thinking about this earlier today but about 20 years ago I remember renting a Best of Raw tape that was from the first year or two of the show. I recall thinking how much worse the actual wrestling had gotten in about 5 years, from roughly 1993 to 1998.

That's the amusing irony of NXT to me. The critical darling NXT show owes a lot more to 1993-95 era Raw than it does to anything Attitude Era related.

[arrogantmodel]

Apr 12, 2020 22:20:04 GMT -5 bob said:

nope

there were some bad things like the higher power, which was the very first thing I can remember thinking that made absolutely no sense, but there was a lot of good

everyone on the roster was doing something

every match felt important for the most part

the good far out weighed the bad back then

Yep. When you got an insanely stacked roster too, with Austin, Rock, HHH, Taker, Foley, Angle, and Jericho leading the way, they're going to make shit work.

Plus, the tag division was on fire too. How often does that happen? E&C, Dudleyz, Hardyz, APA, Too Cool, and even teams like Head Cheese, Brothers of Destruction, and the Hollys were involved.

And EVERYBODY got a reaction. While WWF had a lot of dumb stuff, you could enjoy the performances. Meanwhile, WCW was cranking out shit that was stupid AND made absolutely no sense.

[Deleted]

There was a ton of bad crap. In it. A ton.

The thing is that most of the wrestlers they had were so great that they could be given something bad and you'd still take something great out of it due to their performance. Whether it was their characters, promos, wrestling matches, intensity of their feuds, hypeness, just whatever it was you had something to offset the bad stuff. For example, Kaientai and that Val Venis stuff. That was a horrible trash storyline. What was awesome though was Val Venis's character and how funny he was in it and the implications of what the storyline was about. It wouldn't work today but it worked then due to the time we were in and how on fire Val Venis was.

As a teenager during those times everything I saw sounded like it fit in with me and my friends just jonning at school. It worked.

[koreycaskets]

Apr 12, 2020 22:20:04 GMT -5 bob said:

nope

there were some bad things like the higher power, which was the very first thing I can remember thinking that made absolutely no sense, but there was a lot of good

everyone on the roster was doing something

every match felt important for the most part

the good far out weighed the bad back then

I understand there was a ton of crap during the AE but I shake my head when I see people say it was overated. People loved that stuff! And everyone on the roster as you said was used in some sort of storyline.

[Heartbreaker]

It's like for every good angle, there was five horrible ones.

[Mike Strike]

Like when is WWE at any given point NOT wall to wall wrestlecrap? WC.com is never short on Gooker nominees.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

By the time 2000 came around, the good definitely started outweighing the bad. There were still a few things that didn't work but when they had that much talent, the worse stuff got relegated to the shows like Heat and Metal that no one saw.

[Deleted]

Apr 12, 2020 20:32:00 GMT -5 thecrusherwi said:

With that being said, of the two major boom periods of WWF/E history, the Attitude Era sure hasn’t aged as well as the Hogan Golden Era.

That's my take on it. At worst, the golden era had cringeworthy goofiness. The Attitude era at its worst crossed the line of good taste, then backed up and took a dump on it.