Since the rise of WWE as the leader in Sports Entertainment back in the ’80s, the pro wrestling juggernaut has gone through numerous changes. Today’s WWE traces back to Vince McMahon Sr.’s World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) and its subsequent takeover by Vinnie Mac Jr. in 1979. Since then, the brand has passed through a number of distinctive eras, like the Rock ’n’ Wrestling Era, the domination of Hulkamania, and the subsequent “New Generation,” which saw stars such as Bret “The Hitman” Hart, Shawn Michaels, and the 123-Kid fill the void caused by the departure of established talent like Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Ultimate Warrior, and even Hulk Hogan himself.
In the late ’90s, perhaps officially kicking off at WrestleMania 13, Vince pulled the trigger on the “Attitude Era”—an edgier, cooler, and more adult approach to the action, storylines, and dialogue the WWE is known for. This drastic change in direction was necessary to compete with rival group WCW, which by this time was handing them some hefty TV rating defeats head-to-head on Monday nights. The Attitude Era provided us with countless jaw-dropping moments, over-the-top Superstars, and a more violent take on pro wrestling. This helped WWE not only reclaim the TV ratings, but it forced WCW out of business in the process.
New stars like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock, and D-Generation X left an indelible mark on pro wrestling history during an era that stretched from midway through 1997 until the company outright bought WCW around WrestleMania 17. But while some fans call for a return to the Attitude Era’s edgier style and direction, the truth is this time period had its fair share of issues that get swept under the rug in favor of nostalgia. We’re here to take an objective look back at this bygone era in WWE history—an era that was too crass, too vulgar, and quite frankly, a bit too overrated for its own good (and why today’s product is better for not copying it).
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Championships Meant Nothing
For the most part, titles completely lost their prestige during the Attitude Era. Championship runs were short, and you didn’t need to be an active wrestler, or even enter a wrestling ring, to win WWE gold. The Hardcore Championship was an entertaining concept, which stipulated that the belt could be defended anywhere 24/7, but after some fun ideas—including the title being contested at Newark Airport and in hotel rooms—it soon ran out of steam. In a bizarre bout involving several family members, Vince McMahon became WWE Champion by defeating Triple H in 1999, and even one of the Godfather’s “Ho’s” can lay claim to being a WWE Hardcore Champion.
Chris Jericho won the WWE Title in 2000, and then had his reign expunged from the record—all during a single episode of Monday Night RAW. These storylines took the shine away from the biggest prizes in wrestling, and while this may, or may not, have been good entertainment, the damage took years to fix.
These days, we are treated to some seriously worthwhile title runs like AJ Style’s 371 day reign as WWE Champion, The New Day’s 483 days as Tag Team Champions, and Pete Dunne’s 600+ days (and counting) as United Kingdom Champion. These more significant championship runs have brought much needed credibility back.
Today’s social media landscape makes the WWE experience far more interactive, thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms. Fans now have more power than ever before to get their voices heard, and such feedback has often helped bring change to the overall the direction of WWE like giving women more equality with the #GiveDivasaChance hashtag.
The WWE has also shown other sports and entertainment businesses that social media can be a key way to reach an audience. The recent introduction of ‘Mixed Match Challenge’ on Facebook Watch means that WWE is being seen by not just wrestling fans but their friends too. The company now has more than 750 million social media followers and more than 14 million subscribers on YouTube alone. With Snapchat reportedly becoming the brand’s fastest-growing platform, credit must be given to how the current era of WWE has embraced its social following.
WWE always had its smaller feeder territories such as Ohio Valley Wrestling and Florida Championship Wrestling, but with the advent of NXT, the way WWE recruits and promotes new wrestling talent has changed beyond compare. With Triple H at the helm, NXT is not only a recruitment operation that boasts Performance Centre’s in the United States and United Kingdom, but has also grown organically into a standalone promotion, with weekly television shows and special events, just like the main WWE roster.
At this point, NXT is no longer seen as a “developmental” promotion, and regularly presents matches that are candidates for match of the year. Thanks to NXT, and now NXT UK, we get even more original wrestling content and a chance to see future WWE mega stars such as Velveteen Dream, Ricochet, Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate. In fact, many pro wrestling fans feel that NXT, with its traditional old-school wrestling feel, is more suited to them than the main WWE product. In other words, WWE is trying harder than ever before to satisfy your wrestling tastes.
Girls like Sunny and Sable were great for business, generated millions of image downloads and brought extra eyes to WWE TV, but they were generally seen as nothing more than eye candy during the Attitude Era.
Aside from Chyna—who broke the mold and showed that women could be just as entertaining as the men, while also being strong and physical—the Attitude Era had a pretty bad record for its presentation of females. Women’s matches frequently revolved around tacky deviations such as Mud or Bra and Panty contests, where the loser would be forced to strip down to her underwear in front of 15,000 drooling guys. It would all make for cringeworthy viewing in 2019.
The Godfather would walk to the ring with his “Ho Train,” and Vince McMahon’s evil on-screen character would pursue affairs with his female talent. It’s a far cry from today’s more progressive WWE Universe, which has brought us many firsts like the inaugural Women’s Royal Rumble, Hell in a Cell, Elimination Chamber, and Money in the Bank matches. Swimsuit models have also been phased out in favor of gifted female wrestlers, and this in itself has brought a wider audience to the leader in Sports Entertainment.
With WWE Monday Night RAW and WCW Monday Nitro going head-to-head in an all-out war for the ratings, both brands would seek to outdo the other by any means necessary. For WCW, which was owned by Ted Turner and thus had deeper pockets, the answer was to acquire as many former WWE stars as they could to bolster its red-hot nWo faction. For WWE, a more creative retaliation would be required.
In order to have viewers turn their TV dial back to RAW, the action got more extreme, and it was common place to see tables, chairs, and even dumpsters used as weapons during some pretty wild confrontations. While this provided fans with jaw-dropping excitement, it was simply unsustainable. There were serious safety issues as superstars took chair shots to the head and referees got covered in the resulting blood. Today’s WWE still has some death-defying stunts, but greater care is taken to protect the wrestlers, and referees now wear gloves at the first sign of crimson. We love a good fight, but, ultimately, we want our beloved grapplers to be safe.
Smaller guys were largely used as cannon fodder during the Attitude Era. The Light Heavyweight Championship (1997-2001) failed to make a lasting impression largely because WCW still owned the majority of talent within its own cruiserweight division, and this was added to the fact that ring time was limited due to the continued TV domination of the McMahon family.
Popular, yet smaller, stars such as Spike Dudley and Crash Holly were mostly put on camera to provide comic relief, or to be sent hurtling through multiple tables. The current WWE Era is not necessarily just a big man’s sport these days. The cruiserweight division has been brought back to prominence with its own dedicated show in 205 Live!, and the size of World Champions is on the decrease, too. Incredibly fit, but not necessarily hulking, talents like Rey Mysterio, Seth Rollins and Finn Bálor have climbed the top of the mountain since the Attitude Era ended, and that’s a great thing.
At WrestleMania X7, Steve Austin shocked the world by shaking the hand of his former sworn enemy Mr. McMahon, who just helped him cheat to beat The Rock for his 5th WWE Championship. Uniting Austin and McMahon in friendship was considered by many to be a questionable creative decision, especially when you consider that their red-hot feud had propelled the Attitude Era to the top of the Monday night television ratings and helped put WCW out of business.
The no-nonsense, kick-ass Stone Cold soon lost his swagger and became a suck-up to the boss that he had formerly despised. Austin even engaged in a rivalry with Kurt Angle over which grappler was McMahon’s most loyal supporter! It was a far cry from the days of opening up cans of “Whoop Ass” for the working man, but Austin’s aura was about to suffer even further with WWE’s purchase of WCW.
The onscreen WCW Invasion became a logistical nightmare for WWE, because they were unable to coax some of it’s bigger stars like Goldberg and Sting to leave their existing contracts, meaning that they would have to wait months, and in some cases years for their arrival in WWE. With WCW’s top stars unavailable, WWE was forced to use many of its own main eventers to keep an invasion storyline interesting. This would call for Austin to turn his back on McMahon, joining the Alliance of WCW, now propped up with ECW.
Austin’s constant flip-flopping between babyface and heel managed to extinguish any remaining spark of the Attitude Era when he tapped out to Kurt Angle at Unforgiven in 2001. It would take many years for fans to erase this whole sorry saga from their memories and by this time the Attitude Era was no more.
Before the advent of the WWE Network in February of 2014, loyal pro wrestling fans would be forced to shell out up to $60 dollars for single pay-per-view like Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. If you wanted to own a copy of any of these special events for posterity, DVDs and Blu-rays would dropkick your bank balance even further.
With WWE’s streaming subscription service (think Netflix for wrestling aficionados), access is granted to the entire back catalogue of WWE PPVs in addition to the latest special events, documentaries, and much more. For $9.99 per month, WWE fans can gorge to submission on all this grapple-based content. Not only is the pricing more than reasonable, saving hardcore fans some serious bucks, but the service has also pioneered even more original mega events such as last year’s Super Show-Down in Australia, and a brand-new UK arm of NXT, complete with UK TakeOver shows. WWE Network has nearly two million subscribers and has revolutionized the way fans consume WWE programming.
In a bid to lure viewers away from WCW, the Attitude Era hit the jackpot when it presented what is perhaps the most profitable wrestling feud of all time between Vince McMahon and his rebellious employee, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. As the story gained momentum, WWE’s business picked up, and we were treated to some iconic scenes, like the time Austin sprayed McMahon right in the middle of the ring with a hose full of beer, and the time he filled Vinnie Mac’s corvette with tons of wet cement. But the downside to these exciting TV segments was the affect it had on the in-ring action.
Matches would often feature strange stipulations, like having an arm tied behind the back, and main event matches would frequently culminate with referees being knocked out with members of the McMahon family taking the ref’s place. For years, matches further down the card were given minimal TV time in order to make way for all the backstage goings on, which became a waste of great talents like the British Bulldogs, D’Lo Brown, Jeff Jarrett, Raven, Owen Hart, and many more. Today’s WWE may have less craziness backstage (Braun Strowman aside), but stars like Buddy Murphy, Dolph Ziggler, Rey Mysterio, Andrade Cien Almas, and many more are lighting up our screens with some epic confrontations.
Since the birth of WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden in March of 1985, the WWE’s marquee show has continued to be the biggest night on the annual wrestling calendar. Though some wrestlers have come and gone, WrestleMania has been a constant throughout all the aforementioned eras, but never has WrestleMania been bigger, and on a grander scale, than it is now—culminating with WrestleMania 32, when more than 100,000 people jam-packed AT&T Stadium in Dallas to set a new attendance record.
From a staging and production standpoint, it’s unparalleled when it comes to live events. The ‘Show of Shows’ now spans more than just show-day itself, and the number of surrounding events continually increases, encouraging tourists travel from all around the world to be a part of what is now known as ‘WrestleMania Week’. First there’s the Fan Axxess events, followed by the annual Hall of Fame show, and then NXT TakeOver.
WrestleMania itself is now broadcast on WWE Network as part of its subscription plan, meaning that it is viewed by a larger audience now than in the days when it was purely aired on pay-per-view.
To scour the archives for those iconic Attitude Era moments or catchup with the latest happenings on NXT, visit wwe.com. New members get their first month of WWE Network for FREE!
