bandwagon hopping fanbase?
As someone who first started watching wrestling(WWE in particular) during the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era, that's kinda how I feel about this era. Most of the people I know, at first never cared for wrestling until the Attitude Era came along. Then once the Attitude Era ended, the trend ended and got all the casuals off the bandwagon and started hopping back onto the Anti-wrestling bandwagon. I remember back in elementary about 12 years ago, some kids would used to make fun of me because I still watch "fake and gay wrestling sh*t"(I've been always aware the pro wrestling is pre-determined/scripted, I just enjoy the technical wrestling skill aspect of it and the mic skills). I didn't care, lol. I just moved on with my school year. These same people who hopped on the Attitude Era bandwagon, have now hopped on the UFC/MMA bandwagon, lol.
Don't get me wrong. The Attitude Era was still a great era that gave us Stone Cold, Kane, The Rock, DX and the very first ever Hell In A Cell match(Undertaker vs HBK) but what people refuse to believe was that the AE was mainly known for producing more flashy wrestling characters and edgy and over-the-top yet fun storylines, not for 5-star wrestling matches. You guys can go ahead and rip me a new asshole for saying this but I'd say the Ruthless Aggression era gave us better wrestling matches(at least on Smackdown shows and a few Raw brand matches at a Wrestlemania) than the Attitude Era did. In fact, the Ruthless Aggression gave us the Cruiserweight talents(even giving some of them main-event push) that were greatly overlooked due to their physical size and lack of mic skills.
All the Attitude Era really gave us was a lot of legendary, mainstream main-eventers(that were given the freedom to improvise their wrestling character/gimmicks at the time) and over-the-top story angles that would have never flied in today's era of WWE. There's a reason why RA Wrestlemania events like Wrestlemania XIX had higher ratings than AE Wrestlemania events like Wrestlemania XV and 2000 according to many wrestling critics and a couple die-hard fans. Some have debated XIX even gives X-Seven(a AE Wrestlemania event, that is often referred to as the best Wrestlemania of all-time) a run for it's money, despite that X-Seven had a higher crowd attendance than XIX(though not a big difference).
As someone who first started watching wrestling(WWE in particular) during the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era, that's kinda how I feel about this era. Most of the people I know, at first never cared for wrestling until the Attitude Era came along. Then once the Attitude Era ended, the trend ended and got all the casuals off the bandwagon and started hopping back onto the Anti-wrestling bandwagon. I remember back in elementary about 12 years ago, some kids would used to make fun of me because I still watch "fake and gay wrestling sh*t"(I've been always aware the pro wrestling is pre-determined/scripted, I just enjoy the technical wrestling skill aspect of it and the mic skills). I didn't care, lol. I just moved on with my school year. These same people who hopped on the Attitude Era bandwagon, have now hopped on the UFC/MMA bandwagon, lol.
Don't get me wrong. The Attitude Era was still a great era that gave us Stone Cold, Kane, The Rock, DX and the very first ever Hell In A Cell match(Undertaker vs HBK) but what people refuse to believe was that the AE was mainly known for producing more flashy wrestling characters and edgy and over-the-top yet fun storylines, not for 5-star wrestling matches. You guys can go ahead and rip me a new asshole for saying this but I'd say the Ruthless Aggression era gave us better wrestling matches(at least on Smackdown shows and a few Raw brand matches at a Wrestlemania) than the Attitude Era did. In fact, the Ruthless Aggression gave us the Cruiserweight talents(even giving some of them main-event push) that were greatly overlooked due to their physical size and lack of mic skills.
All the Attitude Era really gave us was a lot of legendary, mainstream main-eventers(that were given the freedom to improvise their wrestling character/gimmicks at the time) and over-the-top story angles that would have never flied in today's era of WWE. There's a reason why RA Wrestlemania events like Wrestlemania XIX had higher ratings than AE Wrestlemania events like Wrestlemania XV and 2000 according to many wrestling critics and a couple die-hard fans. Some have debated XIX even gives X-Seven(a AE Wrestlemania event, that is often referred to as the best Wrestlemania of all-time) a run for it's money, despite that X-Seven had a higher crowd attendance than XIX(though not a big difference).
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