The Brown One

The Attitude Era was OVERRATED

35 Comments

, 09-03-2011 at 08:53 AM (9239 Views)

You heard me. I think the era proclaimed by many as the "best period in wrestling" was greatly overrated. Now don't get me wrong, I liked the Attitude Era, especially for giving us arguably the two most popular wrestlers of all time: The Rock and Stone Cold, but it wasn't as great as everyone seems to remember it. Heres my reasons as to why the era wasn't as great as people think it is.

Hardcore Wrestling
I just got finished watching the infamous Mankind v Undertaker Hell in a Cell match, and the top comment read as follows: "This was back when there was good wrestling". That made me think the guy who posted it was a bloodthirsty redneck. Not taking anything away from the Hardcore Legend Mick Foley, but the Attitude Era was crammed with hardcore matches, which many fans thought made for great wrestling. It added to the match, but it wasn't wrestling. It was spots and bumps. It also had a downside - it shortened careers and caused injuries. Take for example Edge, who could have probably had a longer career if he didn't put his body through so many dangerous matches. It really disappoints me when people like the WWF mainly for their hardcore wrestling, instead of the wrestling itself.

Title Prestige

Now I've heard several people saying in the last couple of months that the WWE's titles don't have prestige anymore. Bull-f*cking-shit. People seem to remember the Attitude Era's world titles being held by the likes of The Rock, Stone Cold, Kane, The Undertaker, Mankind, Triple H and Chris Jericho. The Attitude Era marks think that the world titles being held by the popular wrestlers above gave the titles prestige, but they seem to forget how quickly the world title changed hands during that time. Remember Kane's 1 day reign? How does that add prestige to the WWF title? It doesn't. Today, we get title reigns of similar length compared to those during the time of the Attitude Era, except with wrestlers that Attitude Era marks deem as "boring" - John Cena, Randy Orton, Sheamus, The Miz etc. But by holding on to the titles for a decent amount of time, they ARE adding prestige to them. Its just that they aren't as popular as the wrestlers of the AA.

The Women
We did get some good matches out of the women back then, but most of the time the women were only around for sex appeal. We had Tori, Trish, Sable and Lita running around in scandalous clothing, having pillow fights and mudpool matches to get the teen guys and horny men off. People complain about the current crop of Divas being unable to wrestle, but the WWF had its fair share of "no-talented" bimbos in the Attitude Era too. Unfortunately the AA fans seem to have a cloudy memory of how crappy the majority of the women wrestled back then, and replace that with memories of matches of Jazz, Trish, Molly Holly and Lita.

Misconceptions
Ever since the "PG Era" came into existence, several WWF fans have been complaining "We're sick of this PG era crap, we want the Attitude Era back!". Well the AA also had its moments of stupidity which fans tend to overlook. Remember when Mae Young gave birth to a hand? The Big Show having pooping problems? Compare that to John Cena saying "I'll kick your butt!" and Hornswoggle running through a wall. Not so different after all, are they? - they are both ridiculous. Many WWE fans complained about having horrible celebrities in the WWE - Snooki, Bob Barker etc. Yet they don't bring up the likes of Mike Tyson and Drew Carey being in the freakin' Royal Rumble!

People claimed that the wrestling in the AA was a 100% better than what Vince McMahon produced gave us after it. But several matches were short, 5 minute matches, with very little wrestling. They relied on run-ins and the use of weapons to make the crowd pop. Thats not wrestling. Wrestling is having matches of DECENT length, with great offence from both wrestlers, and using wrestling moves rather than foreign objects to make a great match. Again, not taking anything away from The Rock, Stone Cold and Triple H, but they weren't the best wrestlers alive. They were great characters, who cut amazing promos, but when I think of wrestling, I think of Chris Jericho, Bryan Danielson and Kurt Angle.

In closing, the Attitude Era appealed to fans because it was produced at a time where swearing, consuming alcohol, scandly-clad women stripping and bloody matches were popular. It was good while it lasted, but times have changed. This isn't 1999 anymore, its over 10 years later, and wrestling has matured. Post your hate, thoughts and opinions below, and thanks for reading.

Tags: attitude era overrated

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Comments

rafalafaa - 09-04-2011 06:03 PM
I have no problems with the current era of wrestling that we're in (especially lately) but you couldnt be more wrong. Everything about the attitude era was better.

Hardcore Wrestling was brought in to capitalize on what ECW brought, but it was never focal point of any show. the worst misconception about the attitude era is that it was all about the hardcore wrestling.

Title Prestige nowadays is worse than it was in the attitude era. Remember No Mercy when the title switched hands from Cena (forfeit) to Orton (awarded) to HHH back to Orton? I dont even want to talk about the current Orton/Christian feud. Alsom having two titles, and one of them clearly being known as a secondary title doesnt add much to the prestige

The Divas....ehh its pretty much the same as back then. I have no complaints about the Divas currently, actually.

Misconceptions: That middle paragraph is completely wrong. The mid card matches were some of the best on the card, and got plenty of time. One that comes to mind is Tajiris debut ,match against Crash Holly. Its also no coincidence that most of the best matches post attitude era had attitude era stars in it.

I absolutely love the current state of wrestling right now. I hate to sound like an Attitude Era mark, but it was way better, and it definitely wasn't overrated.
johnnydropkicks - 09-04-2011 06:23 PM
Good blog.

It's not something you see often. I agree with you on Hardcore wrestling. I didn't really like it then. But I think you're off the mark on Title Prestige. When you have the title flying between the likes of Austin and Rock and old Kane and Undertaker it doesn't devalue at all. And everyone agrees I think that womens wrestling isn't as good today compared to the attitude era.
Mr. McMahon - 09-04-2011 07:12 PM
shut up, attitude era is not overrated.

If today there were two seperate wrestling shows. WWE and WWF, WWE being the current stale predictable product and WWF being the unpredictable exciting attitude era product. If they both ran the same time on different channels every monday and friday, I can guarantee all of you IWC fans and sheep would be watching the WWF show and the ratings/buyrates for the WWF should would be creaming WWE big time, it would run WWE out of business.

Believe me if that were to happen, you wouldn't be bitching about it, you would be watching the WWF show and so would almost every other person. You may hate to admit it but you know its ture, you wouldn't watch a kids show when you have a better entertaining alternative
The Brown One - 09-04-2011 08:58 PM
Originally Posted by Iamthegame

Keep in mind that I did read this with an open mind bc I was interested to see what points you made but I have to disagree with you. You say that the women were just like the ones today with skimpy clothing and not much wrestling ability. Debra almost never wrestled, she was a manager. The fact is that there were great women's competitors and their move set wasn't nearly as limited as the women of today. And I recently saw a post on EWN that showcased a MAIN EVENT match betweet Lita and Trish on Raw. They MAIN EVENTED Raw dude! Imagine that happening today..it would be a complete disaster. Also the prestige argument I disagree with. Kane's one day reign served the singular purpose of making sure SCSA didn't have this unbeatable feel bc had he kept the title up until he was finally screwed out of it he would have been the champ for 6 straight months and it also helped further the McMahon story line. But the argument for prestige that many AA "marks" make is that the mid-card titles like the IC and US and especially the Tag Team titles were held by great superstars. Don't get me wrong I think Cody Rhodes will be great someday but Otunga and Mcgullicutty. I dont think that's a team ppl will remember but I could be wrong. In the AA era there were great tag teams. Even the worst of em and makeshift teams like X-Pac & Kane where awesome teams. It's like now they slap a team together who has no potential of developing chemistry. I agree with what you opened with bc hardcore wrestling is not wrestling and there were a lot of hardcore matches back then. But there were a lot of good solid wrestling matches too. I could turn on the TV and see D-Lo Brown and Val Venis put on a match with 0 botching and it kept me intrigued for the whole 5-7 minutes. Steve Blackman, Owen Hart(rip), Mark Henry, Jeff Jarrett, Ken Shamrock, Big Bossman(rip), Test(rip) I could go on and on. Nowadays they give you a 6-man tag match with all the mid-carders in it and that takes away the chance to build an effective story line. If they don't have TV time to put all the mid-carders in a match then get creative. Back then when guys were feuding they didn't have to wrestle each other every single week. They used backstage situations as promos to build the feud. That's the main difference is the effort that the WWE puts into what they do has changed dramatically...sorry so long

1) The women maineventing Raw only happened once (to my knowledge). We did have some good women's wrestling matches back then, but only a handful were good. The rest were full of bimbos showing up to be eyecandy.

2) No arguments there. There was indeed a great tagteam division back then.

3) When was the last time we saw a 6 man match full of mid-carders? Just saying, we don't see that as often as we used to. They actually try to build feuds using tagteam matches and singles matches rather than having a clusterfuck.
The Brown One - 09-04-2011 09:01 PM
Originally Posted by DUBS

To be honest, the Attitude Era gave us great stars like Stone Cold, The Rock, Kurt Angle, Edge & Christian, Mic Foley, Triple H, etc so without that Era, we would be stuck with the same cheesy, stiff wrestling that the 80's and early 90's wrestling was all about at that time.

Also, for the people who say the wrestling matches in the AA weren't that great, I think you need to re-think that statement. Every week on Raw and Smackdown back in the Attitude Era days, they showcased a lot of talented wrestlers and we did see great matches like Chris Jericho vs Chris Benoit for the IC title, Chris Benoit vs Stone Cold on Smackdown, Triple H vs Tazz on Smackdown, and even Triple H & Stone Cold vs Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho on Raw. The Attitude Era was great for showcasing talent, even putting on great matches whether it was a PPV or their regular shows.

Not to sound like an Attitude Era mark but the Attitude Era wasn't really overrated IMO.

Yes we did have many great matches in the AA, but whenever someone brings up the Attitude Era, they think of Stone Cold, The Rock, the swearing and the blood. There weren't many great wrestlers back then. The purpose of my blog was to bring up points that people seem to overlook when they remember the Attitude Era. One of these was the wrestling, where several matches were very short and didn't have much wrestling.
Wade Barrett 1979 - 09-04-2011 09:04 PM
Interesting read, it does stir up a lot of debate!! I don't agree on all your aspects regarding the Attitude Era being over rated! I've been watching wrestling since '85 (God I feel old) and this still remains my favourite era, giving out some of my favourite ever wrestlers!! The one point where I feel most people who've responded to this blog, including yourself, are wrong is about title prestige!!! The title being handed about all over the place has de-valued it some what and this did begin with the Attitude Era, however, it wasn't anything to do with the writers or creative, it was to do with the watching audience and our changes in attitude to the way we watched tv!! We all had our attention spans reduced to that of a hyper active 5 year old and all became part of the instant gratification culture, that now pollutes most of the crap we get on tv!!! Therefore they had to change titles more often to keep us interested and that continues to this day!!
The Brown One - 09-04-2011 09:04 PM
Originally Posted by johnnydropkicks

Good blog.

It's not something you see often. I agree with you on Hardcore wrestling. I didn't really like it then. But I think you're off the mark on Title Prestige. When you have the title flying between the likes of Austin and Rock and old Kane and Undertaker it doesn't devalue at all. And everyone agrees I think that womens wrestling isn't as good today compared to the attitude era.

Its not just having recognizable wrestlers defending titles that make them prestigious. Its also about keeping them for a long time. There were quite short reigns back then too.