Revisionist History of Ruthless Aggression era Midcard being better than the Attitude era

[RLStern]

This has to be the most easy to refute revisionist history.

The Ruthless Aggression Undercard was in no way better than The Attitude era at any point.

1997 - you had Rock, Austin, Owen, Triple H/Chyna, Mick Foley, Shamrock, Goldust, LOD.

Main players - Bret Hart, Taker, Michaels.

1998 - Rock(until summer)/Nation, DX, Owen Hart, Foley(except for spring), Goldust, Val Venis, Shamrock, Jeff Jarrett, Al Snowetc

1999 - Triple H & Chyna(until end of the summer)Road Dogg, “Mr.Ass” Billy Gunn, “Godfather”, Gangrel, Edge & Christian, Hardy Boyz, D’Lo Brown, Val Venis, Big Bossman, Kane, X PAC, Jeff Jarrett, Shamrock, Blackman, Test, Holly Cousins, Al Snow, The Big Show, Kurt Angle & Chris Jericho(at end of year)

2000 - Kurt Angle(for half a year), Chris Jericho, Hardy Boyz & Lita, Dudley Boyz, Edge & Christian Too Cool, APA, Eddie Guerrero, Benoit, Malenko, Saturn, Too Cool, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, RTC, X PAC, Holly Cousins, Big Show, Raven, Tazz, etc


2001 - Same as 2000 but add WCW/ECW guys like DDP, Hurricane, Tajiri, etc

Early 2002 - Same as 2001 but now add Mr. Perfect, Maven, & returning Big Bossman.

That’s off the top of my head too, there were many more stars, they were over.

Then you add the mega draws who would help the undercard like Rock, Chyna, McMahon, Austin, Kurt Angle, Triple H.

From 2002-2005 the WWE undercard consisted of guys who weren’t nearly as over such as Eugene, Mysterio, Cena, Batista, Orton, La Resistance, with some of the attitude era undercard remaining but being completely stripped of their characters and having no one good to work with, some going into world title picture.

Matches on Raw and Smackdown became Longer to compensate for lack of storyline, backstage and characters, but were ultimately worse in ring technically & story wise than the 5-8 minute Raw & Smackdown matches of the Attitude era.

 

[Brad Boyd]

I don't get it either. Although early 1998 still hadn't developed much of the undercard when it comes to guys like Los Bariquas, Headbangers, Disciples of Apolocalypse etcThere were a lot of guys in early 98 that were just there but come fall time of 98: Edge, Al Snow, Gangrel and many others filled up the undercard and there was no room to have any guy wrestle that didn't have a purpose and character at the time. From that point forward the mid card was great. I didn't see anyone lacking character development. Droz, even Chaz from the Head bangers was given skits to do even though they weren't that good. And these guys wrestled 2 minute matches at best and barely showed up on TV. Only guys that I can think of that lacked character were Test and Albert. But even Albert started out doing this weird cross-dresser angle with Droz and then eventually went on to teaming with Test and had Trish being at the forefront of TNA.

Compare to that Mark Jindrak, Garrison Cade, Maven, Billy & Chuck, and a string of others that either little to no character work or, had shitty characters. When people argue that the mid card scene was better in the Ruthless aggression era as opposed to Attitude, I can't help but disagree. 2003 was the year of the big scary monster gimmick. Even guys like Nathan Jones and Matt Morgan really didn't do anything even for the short amount of time they were there. A-Train was just a guy with a train theme song managed by Heyman. Under Russo or Kreski would've been given a lot more character work and skits. A large part of the lacking in quality has to do with Steph & creative. It was still a good era but nowhere near as amazing as Attitude.