Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan
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.
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.