Was this era overrated?

[seabs]

It did have some great moments, I'm not going to deny that but it just annoyed me how it's treated as if it was this flawless era, yet the PG era especially is criticized for doing a lot of the same stuff. This wasn't a criticism thread more questioning was it over rated.

 

[SpaceR]

I will leave my responses in red.


This is going to be completely from my opinion however does anyone else share the sentiment that the attitude era wasn't the perfect entity many IWC members would have you believe? There were some major upsides such as one of the best rosters in history and the crowds being hot every night.

Onto the problems

• The titles were passed around too much.
  Many people class this as a problem with the modern era however lets look at the wwf title history from January 1999-January 2000
  
  Spoiler

  The rock, mankind,The rock,SCSA,Undertaker,Austin,Mankind, HHH, Vince McMahon,HHH,Big Show, HHH
  12 titles changes over a year. How bad does that make the belt look? Everyone seems to have had a turn with it. I'm not saying the belt doesn't get passed around too much today but how can people complain about this but praise the AE?
  
  You have a valid point, no argument here.
  
  
• SCSA was a superman. I know every top face gets this treatment. People hate on Hogan for it. People hate on Cena for it. I've even seen Bruno get some hate for it. So why not Austin? People say this era is predictable but how many times was there a group in the ring were Austin cleared them all?
  Just one example
  
  or even this ?
  
  Imagine the hate Cena would get for doing this to anyone? The amount of ''Teh Cena buriess everyone'' would be huge but Austin does it and is praised for it?
  
  
  I my opinion, Austin played the Superman role very well. He was one of the most entertaining superstars of all time and played it much better than Cena. The IWC gets more mad about Cena's gimmick than superman. Although, you do have a great point.
  
• The over saturation of gimmick matches. Undertaker and SCSA had a hell in a cell match on Raw vs Kane and Mankind. Don't believe me?
  http://www.veoh.com/watch/v1027029Ba8aCnpY?h1=WWE+-+The+Undertaker+and+Stone+Cold+VS+Kane+and+Mankind+%28Hell+In+A+Cell%29.
  It wasn't even a one off they did it again
  
  
  Not to mention all the hardcore matches they had when that title was in effect.
  
  Thank you, they were overused like crazy and made it seem less exciting when they declared one at a PPV.
  
  
• Every main event feud usually ended up involving the McMahons. Wrestlemania 2000 - The McMahon family.
  In fact the whole of the year 2000 was essentially the McMahon Helmsley era vs the Rock.
  Austin vs Vince in 1998. Had to involve the rest of the family with Linda giving her share of the company too Austin.
  The higher power in 1999 had to be Vince didn't it ? Even though they had kidnapped his Daughter. Just to get to Austin...
  
  This is the worst part. I like Vince being involved at sometimes but they overdid badly. Shane had a few good matches though.
  
  
• Some storylines seemed to be done for shock value and didn't add anything to the product see Mae Young giving birth to a hand. Yeah Youtube that if you haven't seen it I'm not going to see that again.
  
  This is something I never understood. They also did this up until around 2008. For example, when Snitski killed Kane & Lita's baby.
  
  
  
• It took multiple finishers to put a match away. This is more of a personal gripe. I prefer it when one finisher ended the match rather then multiple. It's what we're used to as wrestling fans now but it takes away from the story for me. Compare this huge Mania match
  
  When Hogan kicked out of the gorilla slam it seemed special because very few people did it. Compare that to Rock kicking out the stunner at WM17 it was expected to happen so didn't feel as special to me as it had been done multiple times. It still was a big crowd reaction but there is none of that edge of your seat deal for me.
  
  This is one of my favorite things about the AE. Nowadays, when you see a finisher you basically know that the match is over. This added more excitement and shock value to matches.
  
  
  So yeah I'm not saying the Attitude Era was bad by any means I grew up with it and loved it but to say it was a perfect era some people paint is far from the truth surely? Anyone agree disagree or just want to flame feel free.
  
  

Good post, lots of good points. But, I think the AE was still the best era of time, every time had it's flaws.

 

[Lockard 23]

I think just like the old ECW (according to some people anyhow, I didn't watch or like the old ECW), people tend to only remember the good things about the Attitude Era because the good by far outweighed the bad. I agree with most of what's been brought up.

It had colorful personalities and larger-than-life characters like Austin, Rock, Triple H, Mick Foley, Undertaker, DX, etc. Also, as far as "pushing the boundaries" go, no one had ever had edgy content like that before in wrestling. ECW did, but it had a very small audience overall. WWF was doing it on a much more mainstream platform. The whole novelty aspect (in my opinion) of seeing these sort of boundaries pushed on a wrestling program is what made it attractive. That's why "bringing back the Attitude Era" today wouldn't automatically work or fix anything.

12 title changes in one year (they also had exactly 12 IC Title changes in 1999, I believe) is ridiculous but that was part of Vince Russo's whole belief of titles just being props and thus having no real value. Titles still felt important otherwise at least.

I didn't mind Austin being a superman character and I think the difference between Austin and Cena is that it didn't go on nearly as long for Austin because his career was cut short because of injury. We saw him throughout '98 and '99 and the last part of '00 and all throughout '01 and the first part of '02 and that was it. And he was a heel throughout almost all of 2001 so that doesn't count. He wasn't booked as a superman per se in 2002 so that doesn't count. So that's a very short time frame for when Austin would seem "invincible" at times. It's been going on a lot longer for John Cena and it's beyond stale now.

Gimmick matches were also more special back then. The Hell In A Cell, for example, was new back then. But now? It's been done so many times that it's lost a lot of it's impact. Same goes for the Elimination Chamber match.

When most people say they wish it was like the AE again, they usually don't mean they want the Shock TV aspects back, but they want the color personalities and larger-than-life characters back. AE did that better (IMO) than any other era in wrestling. You just need believable characters who can act and have charisma and are good on the mic and can have a believable feud and match and it will attract people and you can do that in PG. That's pretty much the basis of selling tickets and PPV in wrestling - take two guys, put them into a believable conflict (title, personal hatred, etc.) and make people want to see the eventual match and payoff on PPV.