Thought this would be a good idea for a thread, hope the mods do as well.



Recently, I've been watching old Raw is War episodes from that era. I started at January 1998, and am one show into February. A few observations:

- I can't believe I'm saying this, but some of the matches are just weird, to pointless. There seems to be a lot of squash matches, I guess is what I'm saying.

- Mike Tyson just recently made his debut, and I know it was a huge deal and everything, but I feel like they almost spent too much time on it. I swear after every match it was, "Look at what happened last week between Austin and Tyson." Now, of course it's a good idea to promote the main event to the max, but I felt like it was too much.

- Austin was massively over. Of course we all know that, but re-watching his segments and matches, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

- The build to Undertaker vs. Kane is fantastic. Man, how far Kane has fallen. Removing his mask was a terrible idea.

- Tag division: LoD ruled, I hate the DoA, the Nation of Domination is very underrated. Should be mentioned in the list of great factions, imo. Also enjoying Terry Funk and Mick Foley.

- HHH and HBK were very entertaining.

Thoughts on any of this? Some of it may be "Captain Obvious" knowledge, but I was young during this era and am having fun reliving some of this stuff, while some other stuff has me scratching my head. Hopefully, this can get some discussion going on a great era in wrestling.

Haven't read the post yet but regarding your first sentence I think a lot of things that could be topics are shuffled into the Wrestlemania thread too often. We need more threads itf.

This is a major reason why I started this thread.

Last year I watched a lot of 1999. I tried to make it until the unveiling of the higher power in June I think it happened. I could only make it until May . The match quality was AWFUL. The show was uberentertaining though. I think that sums up the 1997-1999 attitude era. Ironically enough, once Austin left because of injury the match quality went way way up while staying uberentertaining.

Totally agree that Kane/UT buildup to WM 14 was fantastic and unmasking was an AWFUL decision.

I was never a fan of HHH/HBK/DX but I think that's more because they did their jobs really well as they were heels most of the time. The stuff they did with Slaughter I thought was fantastic though that may have preceded the AE, not sure.

Watching the rise of Austin and especially the rise of The Rock was awesome. As you said, Austin had the crowd in his palm. Anytime those two were out there you knew it was a special moment. Anytime they were out there together is now legendary.

I'm one of the few fans who never really enjoyed Undertaker's work during this era. Could've lived without him.

The midcard was so entertaining and colorful. From Val to Godfather to Foley and this list is endless. They rarely had good matches but it was always a good time.

I was 16 when the era started and just a huge mark so I don't remember much. I just remember recording it every Monday while at work and then recording the Nitro replay afterwards. Great days. I'll think of more but that's my tangent for now.

I don't remember much of the Higher Power stuff aside from the big unveil. Look forward to watching it. lol

Speaking of Undertaker, I was never really a fan of his Ministry of Darkness or whatever the group was called. He's much better as a solo act.

Also, last night I watched the episode where the Outlaws lock Cactus and Funk in the dumpster and shove it off the stage. The commentators begin using what is referred to now as the "Owen voice" Jack and Funk look seriously injured and are taken to the hospital. You'd swear with the way the commentators are talking, and the girl (Sunny?) crying, that their careers are over.

At the end of the show, they return and save Austin from an attack by DX. I was confused.

I thought Ministry of Darkness was great. Genuinely creepy in a way often striven for but rarely attained.

This best part of the attitude era, and I honestly think it had a lot to do with Russo, is that everyone had a storyline. It might have been something dumb like the Bossman/Big Show angle, but at least they were feuding over something. Now it seems like if you're not in one of the top 2 feuds you're basically just in a match for no reason.

Thread is a good place to mention the excellent AE Podcast. Three guys from the UK, one of whom never watched any of this when it happened, review every PPV (and a few other things) from the attitude ERA.

This is the biggest reason I got back into wrestling. Really fun.

http://attitudeerapodcast.blogspot.com/

That was true in the Golden Era too. It's just good booking to have stories and feuds attached to people up and down the card, even if it's "Al Snow is teaching Steve Blackman how to have more personality" or "Bobby Heenan stole a dog."

Seriously, if Kofi Kingston is going to wrestle a guy 75 times on Raw, at least give us a reason to believe that the two guys hate each other.

Ministry of Darkness was great. I was only a kid and started off when they came onto the scene. It was genuinely scary for kids. I can't even explain the excitement I had towards watching every week, and then discussing it in school the following week.

Mike Tyson had a Bootista-like trajectory, where he was announced for Mania and they were very, very clearly expecting him to be cheered and he was instead booed mercilessly. Seeing that happen is hilarious fun no matter who the person is. They were wise enough to go ahead and turn Tyson heel until Mania and then turn him back. It absolutely worked really well and paid off the splash of bringing Tyson in.

I was trying to figure out why the turned Tyson heel. Thanks.

Watched No Way Out 1998 last night. I thought it was a good show, with a really solid main event. Also, Sable was extremely hot and Marc Mero was a goof. I like his finisher, though.

Looks like I'll have to watch more Ministry stuff, see if my opinion changes.

Marc Mero before the boxer gimmick (and thus before a major knee injury) was a decent bit better in the ring. Not great, but could easily put on great matches. Upon coming back he was just terrible in the ring, and while he did a bit of entertaining heel stuff he mostly just sucked all around.

I see what people are saying now when they say everybody had a story line. Hell, even Kurgan's terrible stable (before the Oddities) has a story line.

I read somewhere that they were going to have him be the higher power, but obviously they decided differently.

So true. Give me a mediocre match with a reason to give a **** about it rather than a great athletic match between two random guys thrown together anyday.

Even the 80's had this. Hogan/Andre was a giant piece of crap from an in ring standpoint, but everybody remembers the build. Even something as simple as Rick Rude assaulting Jake the Snake's wife can make a great feud. George the Animal Steel stole Elizabeth. Jim Cornette threw a fireball and blinded somebody (Garvin?).

Not that hard to write good mid-card feuds. Said a few times the Wyatts/Shield could have been this generations Von Erich/Freebirds if done the right way and given a year instead of rushing the breakup.

And two guys having words in the back and challenging each other to a match is not it either. If it's not for a title, which WWE doesn't even seem to care about anymore, I need to care about why these 2 guys are fighting.

I'm not sure if that would have been a better or worse choice than Vince.

The basic problem here is that, well, there's just a lot more wrestling on than there used to be. In yon olden days you could have a feud, they'd go once a month or so, it would drag out for 9 months and justify itself. Now, with 5 hours of TV a week to fill and the internet all over every little thing, a lot of the mystery is gone, and a random midcard feud that took a year before plays out the same story arc in like 6-8 weeks. So you either have to have this quick-change thing going on, or you submit yourself to Kofi-Ziggler MDCCLXVIII, and there's only so many ways you can have a match between two people.

It would have at least been an attempt to get someone else over, even if just partially in the long run.

They used to have a bunch of different shows that totaled five hours a week; to be fair, counting everything today we're at seven for the main product. But it's less about the number of hours to fill and more about the fact that they did away with jobber squashes.

They have tons of people on the main roster and can't even be bothered to use some of their TV time on them. If you're not just going to squash local indy talent, use the likes of these people as jobbers (and yes they're all under contract to the company):
Alex Riley
Brodus Clay
Camacho
Curt Hawkins
Darren Young
David Otunga
Drew McIntyre
Evan Bourne
Ezekiel Jackson
Heath Slater
Hunico
Jinder Mahal
JTG
Justin Gabriel
R-Truth
Tensai
Tyson Kidd
Yoshi Tatsu
Zack Ryder

You can also call up NXT people for appearances in that regard too. This seems like a decent compromise toward getting more people on TV and reducing the pace of their stupid storylines that they don't think through for more than a week in advance.

There are definitely ways around them following their current booking model. And hell, what I'm proposing doesn't even create more work for the booking team. Jobber squash - 6 minutes. Done. Sometimes do a normal squash, sometimes have extracurricular stuff that advances an angle. Only give away one non-jobber vs. non-jobber per hour and do them in tiers. Have one lower-end match, one midcard/upper midcard, one main event level. Like...
Hour 1: Curtis Axel vs. Kofi Kingston
Hour 2: Cesaro vs. Mark Henry
Hour 3: Batista vs. Sheamus
Everything else is jobber matches, angles, interviews. Period.

If a match is going to happen on PPV anytime in your future plans, do NOT have it on free TV except in rare circumstances. Confine 95% of title defenses to PPV. Don't have your very top names wrestle on free TV most weeks; make it a special occasion, mostly confining them to PPV with the rare Raw match. Still have them on TV to advance angles and what not. And for ****s sake, map out your story for months in advance; knock it off with this "aw ****, show starts in an hour, let's book it now" garbage.

No way the amount of product on TV needs to translate to what we're getting today in terms of rushed storylines.

What's the story with HBK's back injury? I know he hurt it when Undertaker back-dropped him on the casket and it was a pretty severe injury, but how was he still able to walk? Watching the Mania'14 main event, you can see the incredible pain he was in.

When I pulled a muscle in my back, I could barely walk for two weeks, and here this guy is putting on a pretty good main event in the biggest wrestling show of the year with a much more severe injury? Wow.

HBK toughing out WM 14 was really only ever topped in toughness by HHH gutting out the end of that tag match with the torn quad (and actually telling Jericho to go ahead and put him in the Walls or Jericho). At least in terms of the years that I've watched.

Truly amazing.

If the Attitude Era were the Authority Era

Attitude Era: Austin doesn't like the boss, gives him the middle finger, stuns him.
Authority Era: Austin doesn't like the boss, HHH makes him apologize and then cry in the middle of the ring.

Attitude Era: HBK guts out a severe career ending back injury to pass the torch to Austin and isn't seen again for years.
Authority Era: HBK loses belt to Austin, comes out the next night to show everyone how injured he was so we know the new champ didn't beat him at 100%, therefore demeaning his victory.

That's great and all except that watching Ryback squash JTG is going to lead to a LOT of people clicking to one of the 284 other channels available to them, which is about 280 more options than there were in the good old days.

Are people interested and sticking around for these non-jobber matches? I can't see what the thought process would make "Ryback does his offense" particularly more appealing to the average fan than "these two are going to wrestle for the 75th time."

Raw in its early days was just one real match and a bunch of jobber squashes. That was in a cable era where tons of channels already existed. I understand that it became an arms race when Nitro was offering name vs. name in every segment, but that's not an issue anymore.