All the kids watching todays wrestling who werent around during the attitude era and have no clue what they are missing.
AE was when you idolized wrestlers.
DX ,The Rock, and Stone Cold were the best that ,made the whole attitude era great and memorable. The best writing they will probably they will ever have, thanks to them eliminating all the competition. WCW back then were beating them in the ratings and NWO were big enough to help hurt the WWE and MAKE them come up with something worthwhile. During the Attitude Era, you had a lot of less popular WWE superstars wrestling a lot more and had almost as equal storylines as the the most popular superstars. The WWE Intercontinental Championship had as much meaning as the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship. To be honest, kids watched the attitude era as well. I guess parents didn't like what was going on or Vince McMahon just wanted to make more money. I dont know why, but I wish it would go back to this era or atleast create a new one with atleast 40% of the things that they could during the Attitude Era. Ruthless Agression was good too, but Attitude Era was amazing. It was always entertaining and it had the best Superstars. Without question, it was amazing. from a wrestling standpoint it was not. but if you are going how it shows what a promotion can do to survive and take down a Juggernaut that wants to end your fed like WCW tried to do to them. well it was the best wrestling that they had at the time. The Attitude Era was almost all gimmick matches where weapons were used in pretty much every match. Today's WWE is made up of mostly cookie cutter wrestlers who all do pretty much the same thing. I'd say the best wrestling that WWE ever had was the early 90s and before. Not necessarily at the main event level, with guys like Hogan, Andre, and Warrior, but in the midcard. Guys like Texas Tornado, Mr. Perfect, Bret Hart, Roddy Piper, Shawn Michaels, Tito Santana, Rick Martel, Jake Roberts, etc. Do I think it was the best ever? Not really. There possibly have been better wrestling periods for the WWE. As someone said earlier, there was surprisingly a huge amount of good wrestling actually after the Attitude Era around 2002-2004 or so, especially out of Smackdown. The early 90s and 80s also had tremendous wrestling at points.
However, I think that the Attitude Era's wrestling is up there purely because they had the right performers to do so. This was an era based solely on gimmicks, stipulations and storylines, not wrestling. By all means, it should have been a horrible period for actual wrestling. Luckily for the WWE, however, they had a roster stocked full of talent during the Attitude Era, and that's how they managed to still put out good matches. Guys like Austin, Foley, the Rock, Undertaker, etc. knew how to wrestle and kept the main event matches at a high quality. Meanwhile, you had the midcard stacked with wrestlers like Edge & Christian, the Hardyz, Val Venis, Goldust, Benoit, Jericho, etc., many of whom would become future breakout stars in the future. If the WWE didn't have such good wrestlers, then the wrestling quality would be miles from good, but an extremely solid roster helped the match quality stay surprisingly consistent.
People do overrate the Attitude Era because it's usually the period they started watching at, so they don't really know any better (despite the fact that good wrestling continued afterwards, as previously mentioned). It's also a really hip thing to say for some of the newer smarks, sort of a bandwagon thing. But that being said, the Attitude Era may not be the best ever, but it's up there.
AE was when you idolized wrestlers.
DX ,The Rock, and Stone Cold were the best that ,made the whole attitude era great and memorable. The best writing they will probably they will ever have, thanks to them eliminating all the competition. WCW back then were beating them in the ratings and NWO were big enough to help hurt the WWE and MAKE them come up with something worthwhile. During the Attitude Era, you had a lot of less popular WWE superstars wrestling a lot more and had almost as equal storylines as the the most popular superstars. The WWE Intercontinental Championship had as much meaning as the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship. To be honest, kids watched the attitude era as well. I guess parents didn't like what was going on or Vince McMahon just wanted to make more money. I dont know why, but I wish it would go back to this era or atleast create a new one with atleast 40% of the things that they could during the Attitude Era. Ruthless Agression was good too, but Attitude Era was amazing. It was always entertaining and it had the best Superstars. Without question, it was amazing. from a wrestling standpoint it was not. but if you are going how it shows what a promotion can do to survive and take down a Juggernaut that wants to end your fed like WCW tried to do to them. well it was the best wrestling that they had at the time. The Attitude Era was almost all gimmick matches where weapons were used in pretty much every match. Today's WWE is made up of mostly cookie cutter wrestlers who all do pretty much the same thing. I'd say the best wrestling that WWE ever had was the early 90s and before. Not necessarily at the main event level, with guys like Hogan, Andre, and Warrior, but in the midcard. Guys like Texas Tornado, Mr. Perfect, Bret Hart, Roddy Piper, Shawn Michaels, Tito Santana, Rick Martel, Jake Roberts, etc. Do I think it was the best ever? Not really. There possibly have been better wrestling periods for the WWE. As someone said earlier, there was surprisingly a huge amount of good wrestling actually after the Attitude Era around 2002-2004 or so, especially out of Smackdown. The early 90s and 80s also had tremendous wrestling at points.
However, I think that the Attitude Era's wrestling is up there purely because they had the right performers to do so. This was an era based solely on gimmicks, stipulations and storylines, not wrestling. By all means, it should have been a horrible period for actual wrestling. Luckily for the WWE, however, they had a roster stocked full of talent during the Attitude Era, and that's how they managed to still put out good matches. Guys like Austin, Foley, the Rock, Undertaker, etc. knew how to wrestle and kept the main event matches at a high quality. Meanwhile, you had the midcard stacked with wrestlers like Edge & Christian, the Hardyz, Val Venis, Goldust, Benoit, Jericho, etc., many of whom would become future breakout stars in the future. If the WWE didn't have such good wrestlers, then the wrestling quality would be miles from good, but an extremely solid roster helped the match quality stay surprisingly consistent.
People do overrate the Attitude Era because it's usually the period they started watching at, so they don't really know any better (despite the fact that good wrestling continued afterwards, as previously mentioned). It's also a really hip thing to say for some of the newer smarks, sort of a bandwagon thing. But that being said, the Attitude Era may not be the best ever, but it's up there.
