Did The Attitude Era ruin Wrestling?

The Bad Guy · 06-13-2009, 11:40 PM

The attitude era is when they seriously started breaking kayfabe.

It's when they oversaturated the market with monthly PPVs. Before a PPV was a way to end feuds. Now, thanks to the monthly PPVs that started with the attitude era it's just another 3 hour show.

The attitude era was all about fast action, lots of promos and multiple feuds for the same people. Titles changed on a monthly basis and there was never given proper time to develop good feuds before they moved on to the next. People got used to it, and when they now try to do proper feuds (Undertaker vs. Batista for instance) fans are no longer used to this kind of build, and get impatient.

Savage_Animal · 06-14-2009, 12:09 AM

the attitude era didn't ruin wrestling.
what ruined wrestling was many things. one of them being too many writers writing the show when they don't know anything about it including why it was so succesful
another being the death of the territories. it was where you would learn your chops and be surrounded by people with knowledge.
another in many critics mind is vince saying wrestling is fake to the entire world.

Caesar · 06-14-2009, 01:20 AM

Quite the opposite. The Attitude Era SAVED wrestling.

horrorfan_1986 · 06-14-2009, 05:31 AM

Perhaps I'm just bored, but I feel like defending the Attitude Era.

The Attitude Era didn't kill/ruin anything. Instead, it changed the entire landscape of American wrestling. One thing I surprisingly didn't see mentioned once was Eric Bischoff or WCW in the opening post. The Attitude Era was a direct response to Eric Bischoff changing things up on everyone. While that time period can be remembered for killing off the jobber match, you can go back to the early years of the Monday Night Wars. It was the WWE still putting on jobber matches while WCW was giving away shortened versions of their PPV's. Once the nWo came, the WWE was forced to change their product to keep from going under.

While I was always one of the bigger complainers of PPV's becoming meaningless, I finally realized that PPV's are no longer meant to be what they once were. The number 1 reason why this happened wasn't because PPV's were put on the air every month, but because of the death of the jobber days. How are you supposed to market wrestler A vs wrestler B as a big time PPV match when they've faced each other several times on free TV? These days, we're given 4 short PPV like shows every week. (Whether good or bad PPV's, it doesn't matter). Instead, PPV's are now chapter marks in a year. The 12-14 PPV's are more like episodes of a season of television. The free TV now acts as little prologues before the "Real" TV shows.

Going back to the real source of change, Eric Bischoff, if there's one person who killed kayfabe, it was Easy E. Think about how weird it was for a WWE fan to tune in to Nitro and see Hall and Nash together. These were two wrestlers who feuded all of place in the WWE. Even when they were both faces in 1995, I can't recall them ever having a moment together in 1995. Even with the MSG incident, unless you were an early smark or you were at that show, you didn't know about it. I would argue most fans learned about it on Raw in 1997 when DX showed it on the Titantron. All the fans know is that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were enemies. Now in 1996, they were buddy buddy. That right there is a huge kayfabe killer. You could get away with that in the territory days where most viewers had no idea what was going on in other territories unless they read PWI. That's one thing Vince did fairly well. If he was bringing in a star from another company, he either kept the gimmick fairly similar or changed up their look enough so that people wouldn't know it was the same guy.

For the first time ever, the Attitude Era played towards the TV audiences. Instead of just having wrestling on the screen, it played out as if it was a normal TV show. Cliff hanger endings, SOAP Opera-like story lines and attention to everyone's character. Especially comparing to today's WWE, the Attitude Era spent a lot of time on everyone's character. It didn't matter how high or low on the WWE ladder you were, they gave you some time for your character.

The Attitude Era is one of those short time periods that is unable to change. Just as PPV's in the mid 80's changed wrestling, the Attitude Era did the same. To undo the "Damage" caused by the Attitude Era, we would have to bring back the days of jobber matches. Sadly, I doubt fans would be in favor of doing.

King Steventon · 06-14-2009, 09:14 AM

I would say "no". The attitude era ended in about late 1999, and 2000 was perhaps the best year the wwe have had as far as match quality.

Tommy Platinum · 06-14-2009, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Steventon

I would say "no". The attitude era ended in about late 1999, and 2000 was perhaps the best year the wwe have had as far as match quality.

Yeah, if anything ruined wrestling it was the invasion angle and the subsequent brand extension.

King Steventon · 06-14-2009, 10:33 AM

No not really, they still produced a lot of great stuff after the brand split.

I would say around 2003 time they lost the balance between being a wrestling company who had entertaining angles, and became an entertainment company who had some wrestling matches. Necrophilia angle? Really?

Tommy Platinum · 06-14-2009, 10:34 AM

True, but for me WWF/E was never the same again when they split it into brands and had more than one World Title. It never really regained its aura, as nothing seemed like as big a deal anymore.

King Steventon · 06-14-2009, 10:39 AM

I disagree. When they had brand seperate PPVs they still managed to make things feel like a big deal. For example, Lesnar winning the belt was a big deal, Eddie winning the belt was a big deal, etc. Hell, with more time before PPVs they probably were better for it in some cases.