What was the best period of wwe(post 2002)?

mulner92

I stopped watching the wwe in 2002, mainly because of the brand extension. I watched the attitude era and i really enjoyed it, so many twists and shocks. Most people tend to believe 2002-2006 were the best years. From 2007 it got very boring with the pg era and death of benoit( not getting into what he did). I watched it from 2007-2009 but it was nothing like it used to be. What were your favourite years of it?

flahavaj

I adored the Smackdown 6 era which also co-incided with the emergence of Brock Lesnar as one of the WWE's main men. Loved getting up early on a Saturday inevitabley mouldy with a hangover to watch all kinds of combinations of Angle/Benoit/Eddy/Rey etc put on wrestling clinics.

GTR63

I enjoyed 2003-04. Mania XIX & XX were great & there was some class matches in there but its common knowledge its been in decline during the last decade or so.

mulner92

2004 seems to be the pick of many people, guess seeing benoit winning the royal rumble and that match at wrestlemania (watched it on youtube, great match) Smackdown and raw looked really good then and had great heel managers in Heyman and Bishoff. I watched an episode of raw recently and the wrestlers no longer there in the space of 2 years is shocking, could only count a handful. Sad really. Maybe that's why shane McMahon. For the record Vince McMahon is a very good heel. Why isn't he around anymore?

CMpunked

This was a particularly good moment back then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM9ttVpL3ZI

Patricide

It got terrible after that PPV that had WWE and WCW NWO together against each other.

Not directly after but about 6 months after.

D2D

SmackDown when Heyman was booking it, no question.

Honestly though, for all the bullsh!t it's been given, I'm actually finding the PG-WWE really enjoyable to watch:o

jaykhunter

A rough question but I'd say SmackDown in 2003. However RAW was the pits thanks to Triple H being in the height of his c*nt phase. SD! still had eddie, benoit, lesnar, angle, mysterio etc.

Or i could say the year including the first two One Night Stands. (Edge was at his peak as a heel too)

gimmick

flahavaj wrote: »

I adored the Smackdown 6 era which also co-incided with the emergence of Brock Lesnar as one of the WWE's main men. Loved getting up early on a Saturday inevitabley mouldy with a hangover to watch all kinds of combinations of Angle/Benoit/Eddy/Rey etc put on wrestling clinics.

This is the answer. I would even say it was one of WWF/Es greatest ever periods. Great matches with solid easy booking. It has never even come close since.

DM_7

Dare_2_defy wrote: »

SmackDown when Heyman was booking it, no question.

Honestly though, for all the bullsh!t it's been given, I'm actually finding the PG-WWE really enjoyable to watch

Me Too!

Gerard.C

Raw this year has been class

gimmick

^ No it has not. Its been absolute drivel for the most part. Between guest GMs and a fecking laptop GM, the senseless breaking up of their best faction in God knows how long, the consta super Cena its been absolutely fecking abysmal.

If not for the likes of Sheamus, Morrison and Danielson it would not even be worth turning on.

HBK

gimmick wrote: »

^ No it has not. Its been absolute drivel for the most part. Between guest GMs and a fecking laptop GM, the senseless breaking up of their best faction in God knows how long, the consta super Cena its been absolutely fecking abysmal.

If not for the likes of Sheamus, Morrison and Danielson it would not even be worth turning on.

I think he was speaking tongue in cheek with the 'This year' comment, consider there has been what..2 episodes?

Although most of what you said, could be included in those 2 episodes :cool:

CMpunked

gimmick wrote: »

^ No it has not.

Raw this year has been great gimmick! :P

davrho

Dare_2_defy wrote: »

Honestly though, for all the bullsh!t it's been given, I'm actually finding the PG-WWE really enjoyable to watch:o

Agreed.

I dont need the media or the IWC to tell me what I enjoy. Still think its hilarious that folk around the 18-25 saying its a kids show now. And why where you watching 10 years ago;).........

Kudos to Flahavaj. Smackdown was great then. All mentioned could put on the best of matches. Used to watch the 1st hour in the house then the second in the Leinister Arms in Maynooth. In those days they even showed the ppv's there with a lock in.

rossie1977

summer of 2008 to summer of 2009, you had some great feuds during that period, hbk/jericho was just fantastic altogether, hhh/orton leading into WM25which was epic though their match at the ppv stunk and jeff hardy/punk, in-ring punk hasn't reached that level since

parker kent

davrho wrote: »

Agreed.

I dont need the media or the IWC to tell me what I enjoy. Still think its hilarious that folk around the 18-25 saying its a kids show now. And why where you watching 10 years ago;).........

In fairness, around 10ish years ago I was watching ECW (how happy was I when Bravo started showing ECW and then when the videos and DVDs could be got over here). That was not a kids show!

The attitude era was booked for the average horny teenager/perpetual horny teenager. It had a coolness that it definitely would not have now for teens. Now it is booked for 10 year-olds.

GTR63

I've been watching stuff from 2003/4 lately.Just seen Angle vs Lesnar main event mania XIX.What a class match,some of the spots i'd forgotten but they were genius.The chances of a match that good at Mania this year are 0%.I don't think wwe has got the amount of talent it had then Benoit,Eddie,Angle, Jericho,Lesnar,Taker, Rock,HHH,Rvd,Austin & Hbk.

Gerard.C

gimmick wrote: »

^ No it has not. Its been absolute drivel for the most part. Between guest GMs and a fecking laptop GM, the senseless breaking up of their best faction in God knows how long, the consta super Cena its been absolutely fecking abysmal.

If not for the likes of Sheamus, Morrison and Danielson it would not even be worth turning on.

Yeah but with the senseless breaking up of their best faction in ages, you had months and months of Nexus. The break up wasnt great but we still got what 7 or 8 months of them being brilliant. And Cena wasnt looking so super when he was getting Wade Barrett his cups of coffee :cool:

Edit: Regarding this "this year" comment, its still 2010 to me dammit *starts crying*

gimmick

That was one aspect of Raw, which was good. The rest was fast forward all the way. Stop to hope to get a glimpse of a wardrobe malfunction Maryse, and that was about it.

Gerard.C

gimmick wrote: »

That was one aspect of Raw, which was good. The rest was fast forward all the way. Stop to hope to get a glimpse of a wardrobe malfunction Maryse, and that was about it.

Daniel Bryan, Sheamus, Miz, Jericho, even Bret Hart came back on Raw this year. Then youve the likes of R-Truth, Evan Bourne and Ted Jr. who had good matches every week. I'd say less than 10 mins of Raw was worth skipping each week in 2010, bar when they had a guest host, then it was 20. At least they stopped that now

rossie1977

GTR63 wrote: »

I've been watching stuff from 2003/4 lately.Just seen Angle vs Lesnar main event mania XIX.What a class match,some of the spots i'd forgotten but they were genius.The chances of a match that good at Mania this year are 0%.I don't think wwe has got the amount of talent it had then Benoit,Eddie,Angle, Jericho,Lesnar,Taker, Rock,HHH,Rvd,Austin & Hbk.

and as good as that mania was (and it was very good match quality wise) only 500k bought the ppv which shows match quality don't sell ppvs, storylines do, if mania 27 does 500k this year wwe will go into meltdown

parker kent

rossie1977 wrote: »

and as good as that mania was (and it was very good match quality wise) only 500k bought the ppv which shows match quality don't sell ppvs, storylines do, if mania 27 does 500k this year wwe will go into meltdown

You need a combination of both. The storylines will increase the buyrate and you need a good show to get any long-term benefit out of the massive buyrate (other than the immediate money).

Though part of me would not be too displeased if the WWE really did go into meltdown and they did something about the current malaise in wrestling. Before the youth movement people come in, I know there has been promising signs over the past 18 months, but there are still issues which seriously need to be addressed.

tdv123

davrho wrote: »

Agreed.

I dont need the media or the IWC to tell me what I enjoy. Still think its hilarious that folk around the 18-25 saying its a kids show now. And why where you watching 10 years ago;).........

Kudos to Flahavaj. Smackdown was great then. All mentioned could put on the best of matches. Used to watch the 1st hour in the house then the second in the Leinister Arms in Maynooth. In those days they even showed the ppv's there with a lock in.

Probably because they were kids themselves back then?

jaykhunter

Definitely one of the great mysteries in life. Why are WWE a kids show if their largest demographic is 18-35?

davrho

If it was a kids show its rating would not be pg. I thing G is the US rating for general audience?

Smackdown has always been pg yet no one complained till recently.

The largest demograph is the over 50's:eek:

WWE programming reaches 14 million viewers in the U.S. each week.
Balanced age distribution with 78.1% of the audience aged 18 or older.

• 21.8 % of our audience is under 18 years old
• 23.2 % of our audience is 18-34 years old
• 25.3 % of our audience is 35-49 years old
• 29.7 % of our audience is 50+ years old

Source wwe corporate.

tdv23. Exactly. It was hugely popular kids. Sky reran Raw at 10am on a sat morning, before Smackdown toook the spot, albeit censored. Who was the target audience? My guess is kids.

starviewadams

Programming is kid friendly because kids buy the most merchandise.More kids=more filthy lucra for Vincenzo,big nose,big boobs and crew.

parker kent

davrho wrote: »

tdv23. Exactly. It was hugely popular kids. Sky reran Raw at 10am on a sat morning, before Smackdown toook the spot, albeit censored. Who was the target audience? My guess is kids.

Wrestling always has and probably always will be popular with a lot of kids. Nobody is arguing otherwise. The point is that the product is once again produced specifically with kids in mind, much like in the 80s. The PG rating is a red herring in this debate.

Producing something that is rated PG does not mean producing something that is childish. Look at The Dark Knight, the Shawn Michaels/Bret Hart feud from 1997 or any number of other PG rated productions. They don't feature the themes that would get them rated higher than PG. But they are not designed to be kid friendly. The WWE is currently produced to be kid friendly as per the Mattel agreement. I have no problem with the WWE being kid friendly. But I do have a problem with the product being neutered. Look at Hell in a Cell or any other match like that.

The attitude era was full of kid viewers. But the WWE had a coolness then due the type of action involved. The type of kid that was excited by it was the same kid that enjoyed watching the Terminator well before they were 18. The Terminator is a good comparison. The third and fourth films became neutered due to attempts to make it more kid friendly in order to maximise the box office potential. I think the same is happening with the WWE now and actively making it kid friendly is part of the problem.

Being PG does not mean that it will necessarily be poor. Other examples prove otherwise. But it is an element in the change in the WWE.

starviewadams

Some of the stuff that went on in the attitude years you just wouldn't be able to get away with nowadays,call it political correctness or whatever but thats just the way things are.

The wrestling business seems to be very cyclical,the period that the WWE is going through currently very much reminds me of the so called ''new generation'' 10 or 15 years ago when the likes of Bret,Owen,HBK and others were climbing the ranks and older guys like Hogan,Savage etc were being slowly cast aside.Business wasn't improving back then so Vince was forced to become more cutting edge and adventurous.I'd say in a year or two's time if revenue and ratings continue to decline then WWE might start to be a little more adventurous with their content but I doubt that things will ever return to the levels of the so called glory days.

I prefer nowadays product for the most part anyways,if you watch some of the stuff from the attitude era nowadays,a great deal of it is fairly embarrassing.

parker kent

Oh of course things have to evolve and the last thing I would want is a constant re-run of the attitude era. They basically tried that for years on end to inevitable diminishing returns. But there is definitely room for improvement. I've posted in here before about how the WWE is in a perpetual cycle of rise and decline as new stars rise and fall. But there are definitely legitimate issues with the output at the minute.

davrho

Not disagreeing with you on many of your points. PG is not the issue, I agree, yet every Raw we have loads of posts blaming pg?

Its always been kid friendly. Still to meet someone who never let their kids watch it back then.

Where do you get the Mattel influence from? I have heard this on the dirt sheets but when you look at the WWE finances on the corporate web site I cannot see how such a low % of the wwe's annual income can have such an effect on the product.

In my opinion the problem is wrestling has a very seedy background and Vince is trying to clean it up, at last.

The cage match on Raw the other week, a great example, it was claimed there was no offense and the cage was never used as a weapon. The cage was used loads of times. But because there is no blood folk take offense to this. The no blood just like the no chairshots to the head is feck all to do with pg but this myth has been said so many times by the IWC it is taken as truth.

The change in the wwe is it is now a corporate product where profit matters more than entertainment. Read the 3rd quarter results. Again dividends that would equal or better most entertainment organisations are paid out.

I dont buy the pg bullcrap to be honest. Having a convicted rapist, supporters of soft drug legalisation and twins in hot tubs etc is hardly childrens hour.

Anyhow we have hijacked this thread too much.

As i have said in many of my posts. We should not take wwe too seriously and i am now so I will back off.

davrho

starviewadams wrote: »

the so called glory days.

I prefer nowadays product for the most part anyways,if you watch some of the stuff from the attitude era nowadays,a great deal of it is fairly embarrassing.

I agree.

See the glory days remember 2 out of 3 players went out of buisness and the WWE(f) were weeks away from bankrupcy too.

davrho

parker kent wrote: »

Oh of course things have to evolve and the last thing I would want is a constant re-run of the attitude era. They basically tried that for years on end to inevitable diminishing returns. But there is definitely room for improvement. I've posted in here before about how the WWE is in a perpetual cycle of rise and decline as new stars rise and fall. But there are definitely legitimate issues with the output at the minute.

Agreed too!

And i am out of this debate.

parker kent

davrho wrote: »

Where do you get the Mattel influence from? I have heard this on the dirt sheets but when you look at the WWE finances on the corporate web site I cannot see how such a low % of the wwe's annual income can have such an effect on the product.

I thought the agreement with Mattel was very well known. Mattel only signed the deal on the basis that the WWE went PG.

As for every Raw thread having anti-PG posts, I would not use that as a barometer, as should be pretty clear since I hav said that a lot in this thread and every other similar thread that mentions PG as the main reason for the shows now being great. PG is an easy target, but people should worry more about the poor writing skills of the creative staff. It has been proven in the past that PG ratings do not have to mean poor wrestling shows (as is seen by the NWO era WCW, WWF in 1997 etc). Even the emergence of Nexus is an example of what can be done in a PG era.

Just to refer to another of your points, cleaning up the wrestling industry is a good idea, but I don't think Vince McMahon ever has too many noble ideas.

And lastly, to make my points more on topic, my favourite era as mentioned above is the era when Lesnar appeared. This was due to the matches with Benoit, Jericho, Eddie etc. Nothing that they did was particularly non-PG.

GTR63

The whole PG thing only seems ridiculous to me when Austin comes out & can't say anything risky or when a wrestler is bust open the hardway & doctors rush the ring to stop the match.I wish that didn't have to happen,thats what people think of when they think WWEPG. As has been said the most enjoyable era was when Angle,Eddie,Jericho, Benoit & co. did there thing.Simple storylines with great wrestling.No one hates that combination.

davrho

parker kent wrote: »

I thought the agreement with Mattel was very well known. Mattel only signed the deal on the basis that the WWE went PG.

.

? Direct quotes please. No dirt sheet garbage.

parker kent

davrho wrote: »

? Direct quotes please. No dirt sheet garbage.

Do you really expect me to dig up old issues of Power Slam or something similar to get a quote from a reputable source? WWE or Mattel are not going to publish official quotes saying it is the case. But it would not take Sherlock Holmes to put together the pieces and see that WWE sign a deal with Mattel and then officially move to a PG rating.

jaykhunter

parker kent wrote: »

Do you really expect me to dig up old issues of Power Slam or something similar to get a quote from a reputable source? WWE or Mattel are not going to publish official quotes saying it is the case. But it would not take Sherlock Holmes to put together the pieces and see that WWE sign a deal with Mattel and then officially move to a PG rating.

You're definitely right. (Alot of my backstage knowledge comes from PowerSlam, I don't care for dirtsheets lol). PS pointed fingers at a Mattel bigwig that got Danielson (temporarily) fired over the Summer. WWE needed this Mattel deal, alot of other revenues are less lucrative now.

parker kent

jaykhunter wrote: »

You're definitely right. (Alot of my backstage knowledge comes from PowerSlam, I don't care for dirtsheets lol). PS pointed fingers at a Mattel bigwig that got Danielson (temporarily) fired over the Summer. WWE needed this Mattel deal, alot of other revenues are less lucrative now.

Yeah same as, PS is a handy place to get fairly reliable information.

D.Q

Speaking of dirtsheets etc...Meltzer may be regarded as THE source for rumours and backstage info, but tbh, this forum is my first point of call for any news/spoilers.

Why would I pay money for meltzer, when there is a great melting pot of fact and opinion on here for free..

Jazzy

flahavaj wrote: »

I adored the Smackdown 6 era which also co-incided with the emergence of Brock Lesnar as one of the WWE's main men. Loved getting up early on a Saturday inevitabley mouldy with a hangover to watch all kinds of combinations of Angle/Benoit/Eddy/Rey etc put on wrestling clinics.

hi flahavaj

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4upn3M4jtQY

yup.

flahavaj

Jazzy wrote: »

hi flahavaj

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4upn3M4jtQY

yup.

Hi jazzy.

Gerard.C

flahavaj wrote: »

thank god for that