Negative Effects of The Attitude Era

a7k10rf6z8buel

Hi Guys,

First time posting on the Pro Wrestling Thread. I'm a casual wrestling fan. Stopped watching WWE on a full-time basis around 2004. However I recently read Bret Hart's Book (Great Book! ) As anyone who has read the book will know, Bret was quite bitter about the fact that the Attitude era brought about the end to wholesome good guy characters like the Hitman.

The Attitude Era is hailed by many as a (the) Golden Era of Pro Wrestling. But after reading Bret's book I have been thinking about some of the negative consequences of the Attitude Era.

Just wondering if any of you guy's think the Attitude Era has had some negative effects on Pro Wrestling? Does WWE's product look so stale today because the envelope was pushed too far in the Attitude Era?

Machismo Fan

Thinking about it, it was very much short term gain for long term loss. While they did innovate how wrestling TV was presented in the process they eroded away at the basic fundamentals of the business and while WWE didn't feel it while they were hot, they do now (though they've probably done just as much damage in the last ten years as was done during the Monday Night Wars).

rovert

Too much shades of grey (no out and out babyfaces or heels.)

The rise of the cool heel. Your heel that refuses to be shown up, has the best comeback lines and just undercuts what the babyface.

Obvious the bar being raised in terms of Wrestler performance's to an unhealthly and unsustainable degree - Foley's Hell in The Cell, TLC etc.

I do agree the envelope was pushed too far to answer the OP. Anything done after all the violence and swearing looks lame in comparison.

gimmick

The attitude era basically destroyed the value of most titles. The IC became a hot potato and silly things like the hardcore title and European title were added further diluting the lower/middle cards.

The tag titles were similar in that they seemed to change hands every other week (I think). But at least there was a small emphasis on the tag division back then.

The Attitude era coincided with PPVs becoming monthly as well and pretty much saw an end to the local jobber on the TV. What it gave us was complete saturation of the top guys. No more was the World Champ a special attraction - he became a guy who had to open and close almost every show.

The short term benefits were great TV, but The Smackdown 6 era aside, has the product ever truly recovered into must see TV? Answer to that is a resounding negative.

rovert

Someone had to mention HIM sooner or later:

"When you are talking about money, you are talking about old school. I was hired to bring ratings."

ciano316

I loved the attitude era.

a7k10rf6z8buel

rovert wrote: »

Too much shades of grey (no out and out babyfaces or heels.)

The rise of the cool heel. Your heel that refuses to be shown up, has the best comeback lines and just undercuts what the babyface.

Obvious the bar being raised in terms of Wrestler performance's to an unhealthly and unsustainable degree - Foley's Hell in The Cell, TLC etc.

I do agree the envelope was pushed too far to answer the OP. Anything done after all the violence and swearing looks lame in comparison.

I completely agree about too many shades of grey. The Rock, Stone Cold & Undertaker were the most over wrestlers during the period. They were all tweeners/ "bad ass faces". This type of character is now an expectation of a fan favourite. However these characters are very difficult to create. They have had some success with CM Punk in this regard.

It has also become very difficult for the traditional heel to get over. I think this is partly due to the demotion of the pure heel during the Attitude Era. Triple H (99/00) was probably the only "out and out" heel wrestler that was over during the Attitude Era.

jaykhunter

Hey jayceonkay, welcome to PW boards

I guess a part of what made the Attitude Era so great is that they burned through storylines and spots and threw absolutely everything at the screen, with no forethought of what would happen afterwards, but there was a ratings war going on and that kind of atmosphere really made it more exciting; even at the time I was watching I knew how special this time was. But now we're a decade removed from the Attitude Era, here's some negative effects :

The expectations for gimmick matches (HIAC, TLC) were raised unreasonably high. Blood and highspots become expected and trivialised. The PG Era today, taking it away completely, has revitalised it's effect when used (eg Lesnar/Cena blood at Extreme Rules)

"We've seen it all" - so many storylines (even for the midcard) were thrown at the screen. Jericho vs Chyna springs to mind, where he smashed her thumb with a hammer, threw her off a stage injuring her etc.

No new, good, gimmick matches. Last good one was 2002's Elimination Chamber. (2005+ creations include the Scramble Match)

The weekly show got rid of jobber matches, it's now stars vs stars, 'ppv quality matches'; which although fine during a hot period, really doesn't help when business is down.

Boring wrestler attire (everyone wants to be Stone Cold/Goldberg) and so either wear all black, and then black-shirt & blue jeans casually. Thankfully that's not the case any more. With that comes less gimmicks, just 'real people'. Boring 'real person, just me' gimmicks abound!

As Rovert said, the rise of the Cool Heel has really hurt business. With that, the heels play the part of the heels AND the babyfaces, and the good guys just look like boring, bland jerks. So the rivalry doesn't work half as well because one side is impotent. The heels are basically stealing all the momentum of the faces. It's cynically fun but it ruined wrestling, and we're still seeing the effects of it today. This ties in nicely with...

The death of kayfabe. A sizeable portion of your audience know about backstage dealings, rumours etc and WWE feel compelled to change plans (often for the worse) because of it. From Vince changing the match order of last year's mania (because it 'got out' the day of mania) to fans chanting "We Want Lesnar" before his surprise return, nothing good has come from WWE almost admitting their show is fake.

That said, I'd do it all again because the Attitude Era was fúcking awesome. Kids don't know any better today, but they missed out BIG TIME.

briany

I think we might as well be talking about the negative effects of pop culture trends and technology in the late 90s because that's what really drove the attitude era.

Wrestling was coming out of a period of stagnation and bad publicity in the early 90s where fans became less and less satisfied with cheering on the classic babyface and booing the heel. This led to the creation of the NWO in WCW which for wrestling was like breaking the fourth wall and really electrified the wrestling world in a way not really seen since the 80s heyday ,if ever, and the attitude era and all its trappings was merely an attempt to react to this and compete. Don't forget that there was also an upstart promotion called ECW who were seriously pushing the envelope at the time and I don't think WWF would really have known what to do if they hadn't had ECW's blueprint to follow because they innovated a new way to present hardcore wrestling (also some very high quality wrestling) and risky angles in a way that produced a rabid following so I think Heyman should share at least a little bit of the blame.

I think that the Attitude Era was the last truly great hurrah for wrestling but what a way to go.

MrKingsley

After seeing this thread I went back and looked at a few videos from the attitude era and my god it was the absolute titties.

However as a few have said already it definitely set the bar too high to follow in a couple of ways. Both with the extremitity of certain matches but also with the calibre of superstars and their popularity with the fans (regardless of face or heel)

But over the last 7/8 years I think that there have been too many average wrestlers being pushed, too many ppvs and too many belts. Add that to the announcement of raw going to 3 hours I think its just over saturation of the market

Hashtag_HEEL

The attitude era was as most would put it "Lightning in a bottle"
We'll Never have anything like that again! Things like the Foley Cell dive,The Monday night wars and the Bad ass Face-HEELs defined what fans love about Wrestling! People will now compare the current product to the attitude era and point out it's many flaws, fully knowing that what they saw in the 90's Won't be making a return anytime soon!

Bandana boy

gimmick wrote: »

The tag titles were similar in that they seemed to change hands every other week (I think). But at least there was a small emphasis on the tag division back then.

The Attitude era was the pinnacle of the tag team division in my opinion
You had actively competing
The Hardys as team extreme
The Dudleys
Edge and Christian
The new age outlaws
APA
Too Cool
Rock And Sock for a while
Brothers of Destruction for a while

Their was a huge emphasis on the Tag division during the attitude era

Now I loved the tag scene in the late 80s as well but late 90s early noughties was awesome for tag division

bobby_says_hi

i'd say brawling replacing actual wrestling in the main event. it was new and exciting at the time but these days it's just repetitive and a bit boring sometimes. Stone Cold was hugely popular but he also couldn't go like he used to after his neck injury so the brawling allowed them to cover for that. then of course these days you get rumours of WWE watering down the other matches on PPVs so they don't upstage the main eventers. anyone else call this insane troll logic?

the outrageous storylines. some of them are remembered fondly but back then literally anything could become a storyline. Mae Young giving birth to a human hand, Chyna supposedly being a man, Undertaker abducting Stephanie McMahon etc. that led to even worse storylines like Katie Vick and Eddie being the father of Rey's son in later years. at least with a PG rating there's some restriction on what can make it on the show

too much T&A. sex does sell and there is a place for it but not at the expense of the women's division. yeah Sable was hugely popular and putting the Women's title on her was good for business but Debra and Miss Kitty? when you have an actual title being defended in mud wrestling and bra and panties matches and especially when you have trained wrestlers like Tori, Ivory and Jacqueline doing them it's just degrading. say what you will about the Divas these days but at least all of them get some training before they're thrown on TV

a7k10rf6z8buel

briany wrote: »

I think we might as well be talking about the negative effects of pop culture trends and technology in the late 90s because that's what really drove the attitude era.

Wrestling was coming out of a period of stagnation and bad publicity in the early 90s where fans became less and less satisfied with cheering on the classic babyface and booing the heel. This led to the creation of the NWO in WCW which for wrestling was like breaking the fourth wall and really electrified the wrestling world in a way not really seen since the 80s heyday ,if ever, and the attitude era and all its trappings was merely an attempt to react to this and compete. Don't forget that there was also an upstart promotion called ECW who were seriously pushing the envelope at the time and I don't think WWF would really have known what to do if they hadn't had ECW's blueprint to follow because they innovated a new way to present hardcore wrestling (also some very high quality wrestling) and risky angles in a way that produced a rabid following so I think Heyman should share at least a little bit of the blame.

I think that the Attitude Era was the last truly great hurrah for wrestling but what a way to go.

You make some fair points. Competition breeds innovation. I think the WWE is now stuck between trying to please the older fans who were brought up on the "extremeness" of the Attitude Era and building new era stars for the kids. A lack of competition makes it difficult to have a focused direction.

briany

Damian Melted Yawn wrote: »

You make some fair points. Competition breeds innovation. I think the WWE is now stuck between trying to please the older fans who were brought up on the "extremeness" of the Attitude Era and building new era stars for the kids. A lack of competition makes it difficult to have a focused direction.

The WWE still has competition but it's now in the form of things like UFC who WWE can't really compete with since the UFC offers real combat and and WWE does not. Luckily, the WWE does have a built in audience of die hard wrestling fans and kids and there's not much threat to this audience at least not yet. You could say the PG era is as smart as the attitude era as it's a way of doing the best business in the current cultural climate.

The main problem I'd have with the current WWE is the creative straight jacket that wrestlers seemingly have slapped on them as well as the over saturation of the product. I understand why both of those exist but I just wish neither did.

bobby_says_hi

personally i think the way the product is now, at least the direction they're in is pretty good. they're keeping things PG but they know how to push the limits every now and then which works a lot better than having things too kid friendly like when they first switched or too edgy like some of the more extreme parts of the Attitude Era

A Primal Nut

jaykhunter wrote: »

The weekly show got rid of jobber matches, it's now stars vs stars, 'ppv quality matches'; which although fine during a hot period, really doesn't help when business is down.

Why do people like jobber matches? You can still see the odd one on Smackdown if people like them that much.

I'd prefer a shorter show than sit through some local jobber getting his ass kicked. Even when they are used to introduce a new wrestler they are boring. After 1 or 2, we get the point, this new guy kicks ass, now let's see him in some feuds.

krudler

jaykhunter wrote: »

That said, I'd do it all again because the Attitude Era was fúcking awesome. Kids don't know any better today, but they missed out BIG TIME.

indeed, when Friday nights on Sky One meant seeing this (unless you stayed up to watch it live on the Monday):

awwww man, I remember seeing this very episode like it was yesterday, it was TWELVE YEARS AGO.

that intro, the pyro, the nearly always rowdy crowds, not knowing what was going to happen every episode, Raw feeling like it was actually unfolding as you were watching it not the scripted down to the second like it is now, I miss the Attitude Era.

even Jerry Lawler sounds like he actually gives a sh1t as to whats going on in that clip, not like now where he phones it in every week.

Eire-Dearg

What a roster that came out at the start of that video. Even the opening sequence was better than a whole current episode of RAW.

krudler

krudler wrote: »

indeed, when Friday nights on Sky One meant seeing this (unless you stayed up to watch it live on the Monday)

Sky didn't show it live back then because I would have been setting the VCR timer every Monday night if they did

krudler

Deleted User wrote: »

Sky didn't show it live back then because I would have been setting the VCR timer every Monday night if they did

didnt they? thought they did during the later attitude years, used to wait til the friday night and watch it in the pub, thats how big wrestling was around 99-01 when pubs would have it on and people would be wearing stone cold tshirts on nights out.

rovert

krudler wrote: »

didnt they? thought they did during the later attitude years, used to wait til the friday night and watch it in the pub, thats how big wrestling was around 99-01 when pubs would have it on and people would be wearing stone cold tshirts on nights out.

They were still showing it first on Friday mid 2003 at the very least. Fairly sure it was on Mondays pre Wrestlemania XX.

krudler

Eire-Dearg wrote: »

What a roster that came out at the start of that video. Even the opening sequence was better than a whole current episode of RAW.

sure look at how many tag teams were there back then, the Raw intro is fcuking awesome to this day, hell even the Attitude playstation game intro kicks ass

briany

Good intro. Terrible game.

One thing I liked about the old Raw is War intro was the camera moving through the crowd as the pyro went off. There was so much pyro at that time that it took a good ten minutes to clear fully. I swear there was times when the show would kick off would a match and you'd be hard pressed to clearly see what was going on.

jaykhunter

God, looking at that intro - "The Attitude Era - When everyone was awesome" lol. I miss marking out like i did back in the day. A massive difference was how over the midcarders were. These days even 3-time world champion Sheamus can't get a decent pop.

briany

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Why do people like jobber matches? You can still see the odd one on Smackdown if people like them that much.

I'd prefer a shorter show than sit through some local jobber getting his ass kicked. Even when they are used to introduce a new wrestler they are boring. After 1 or 2, we get the point, this new guy kicks ass, now let's see him in some feuds.

I think that people are talking from a business point of view more than a fan point of view. Using local jobbers was a cheap way of (hopefully) getting an emerging or established talent that much more over, gave a couple of extra matches either as fodder for the live crowd or to throw into one of the weekly roundup shows and and gave the local wrestler a taste of the top level and perhaps the chance to make a contact around the place or be noticed by the company. If it weren't the local jobber it would be lower-mid end talent which would further hurt their chances of climbing the ladder. Besides that it's always fun from the fan point of view to go back and look at current stars or stars from the not so distant past when they were the local jobber getting beaten up in quick time by Red Rooster, Beaver Cleavage, or Isaac Yankem.

krudler

jaykhunter wrote: »

God, looking at that intro - "The Attitude Era - When everyone was awesome" lol. I miss marking out like i did back in the day. A massive difference was how over the midcarders were. These days even 3-time world champion Sheamus can't get a decent pop.

case in point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nORokKyPNK0

even guys who werent anything special in the ring, eg the New Age Outlaws, Too Cool etc, were SO over with the crowd, 97-01 was an amazing time to be a wrestling fan.

Eire-Dearg

That video led me to this -

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

So unbelievably awesome.

krudler

Eire-Dearg wrote: »

That video led me to this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kvDOVOQBNwg

So unbelievably awesome.

that was better than 99% of stuff on Raw these days

I'll just leave this here, its still imo the best promo in wrestling history. one thing the wwe can never be faulted on is their video packages, the editors are the unsung heros of the company

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QN5_x8jmJk

Eire-Dearg

Jizz in my pants.

Wrestling will never go through a period like that again. But it was so f'in worth it.

briany

I think that the Invasion era was better than the latter half of the Attitude era. The latter half (1999-2001) of the Attitude era featured overblown wrestling stables constantly at war and some horribly tasteless matches and angles but things really freshened up during the Invasion/transitional era (2001-2007) because of all the dream matches we got to see and renewed emphasis on in ring action. You had Angle V. Benoit at Wrestlemania, Eddie Guerrero feuding with Lesnar, Angle's matches vs. Taker, Rock vs. Hogan, Hogan vs. Vince, Shawn Michaels' comeback, Bishoff as general manager, plus a fair few electrifying debuts as former top WCW stars debuted on WWF/E programming.