To be fair, the booking I constantly campaign for lasted for most of the 90's as well. It took until 1997 that they suddenly did six world title changes in a year in the WWF, and then the seal was broken and we were well on our way to the devalued titles of today.

I don't necessarily want to see five-year reigns like Hogan had in the 80's, though I would support it in an environment where there's a clear #1 guy with nobody else legitimately in the conversation (such as...today).

I can't think of any other reason than nostalgia, for why people would think the territory days, or the 80's were more entertaining than the attitude era. Call me crazy, but I liked seeing Austin, Rock, HHH, Mankind, and Taker on tv every week. If you want to say the matches were better in those days, that's one thing, but the storylines were far from being better. I know I'm way in the minority, but give me HBK/Taker HIAC or Austin/HHH Three Stages of Hell over Steamboat/Flair or Savage/Steamboat.

Booking was way better, titles meant way more, PPVs felt a lot more special. Those three factors instantly come to mind for explanation of my preference. Also in terms of historical impact, Attitude Era loses major points for being the direct source of the death of good booking.

There are amazing matches in every era, so that isn't a great source of discrimination for me, though putting Austin/HHH three stages of hell over Flair/Steamboat is beyond my comprehension.

Maybe the IC title meant more, but I don't think the other titles did. Did it not mean a lot when Austin finally beat Rock at Wresltemania 15 to win the championship after Vince and the Corporation screwed him for a year? Did the Hardy's, Edge and Christian, and the Duddley's fued over the tag titles and the amazing matches they had not mean a lot? Was there ever better Woman's wrestling in the WWE then during the attitude era? And as for taking Austin/HHH over Flair/Steamboat, I felt like Flair/Steamboat was very similar to HBK/Bret, where the pace is very slow and it's about an hour of rest holds. Also probably my favorite part of the attitude era was JR's announcing. JR could make every match seem like the most important match in the world, something no other announcer has ever been able to do.

Now, I'm probably with you in your mentality of thinking, but I just want to point out that JR also did the commentary on all three of those '89 Steamboat/Flair. Sure, he was not a character at that time and probably did not have his black cowboy hat, but its still JR.

attitude era approximately equal to the mid to late 80s >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 1993-95 approximately equal to the past decade or so

I mean, Austin's title win at WM XV was one of 11(!) title changes that year. How meaningful could it have been? Not that it wasn't a good story; it was. But no that didn't nearly have the impact of title changes like Hogan over Savage or Warrior over Hogan. People were used to seeing title changes by WM XV, because their lack of scarcity made it impossible to care as much...there was unquestioned desensitization.

I meant earlier to compliment the women's division in the Attitude Era. That was one thing that smoked earlier eras in the company; no doubt about that.

Tag teams I find to be a tough comparison between the eras. I do think the Golden Era had a stronger top-to-bottom division that was booked really well, but the peak moments of tag action from the Attitude Era were probably better.

And as you mentioned, the difference in the value of a midcard belt was just so massive between the two eras. The IC title used to be one of the coolest things about the company, and now it sucks. When the Attitude Era let people like Road Dogg hold it, it just destroyed the belt. That era holds a ton of culpability in killing that championship.

Quite honestly I always preferred the Monsoon/Ventura and Monsoon/Heenan teams for big events over Ross/Lawler. JR was certainly great, and objectively better than Monsoon at that, but the comedic gold that the pairings Monsoon was in produced consistently made the announcing just a bit better for me in that era.

As for Flair/Steamboat...yeah we're just seeing different things.

1994 really wasn't that bad. WrestleMania X is still, to me, in the upper echelon of Manias. Also we got Art Donovan that year.

But yeah, 1995 especially was brutal. The nearly year-long Diesel title reign was so painful.

One positive thing to be said for this era was that the IC title picture quality remained high. HBK --/> Razor --> Diesel --> Razor --> Jarrett --> HBK --/> Douglas --> Razor was all a pretty good run (save for the fact that HBK never ended his reigns properly).

The biggest problem with 93-94 wasn't what was happening at the top in WWF. It was that just about everything else in the WWF was absolutely awful (so many trash gimmicks on trash wrestlers and throw away feuds), and that WCW was so bad storyline wise.

He is good at being a less successful Arnie Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone. Who are two of the best actors ever using your very basic measure.

peak of tag era was easily late 80s/early 90s. crazy talent there.

i don't mind the titles changing frequently as long as it still means something. i felt like the title meant something when the rock/hhh/scsa/mankind were trading it every month or so. it's kinda just a joke now... and there's really no reason to take it seriously when world championship matches are wedged midcard somewhere between divas matches.

I'd argue that WCW really pulled away from the WWF around this time. WCW had the way better killer heel world champ (Vader > Yokozuna) and IMO had the better set of babyface challengers (Sting and Flair vs Hart and Luger). Of course, each seemed dead set on also coming up with ways to one up the other with Hogan stupidity. There was a lot of great and young talent in the wrestling world in 1993, but everyone was too scared to push it properly.

1999 had the following title changes

Rock to Mankind to Rock to Mankind to Rock to Austin to Undertaker to Austin to Mankind to Triple H to Vince to Triple H to Big Show

How many of those do you remember?

touche