Yeah the gaps seem impossibly wider in past years. Like if Braun Strowman comes back in 2024, that's basically the same gap as when Warrior came back at Mania 12. If CM Punk won the WWE title, there would be a bigger gap between his title reigns than between Backlund's. Come on.

Yeah, for VKM purposes they've found a formula that works and they're not going to continue to evolve from it unless absolutely forced to. I don't know when exactly the Ruthless Aggression Era ended, but it was a long time ago, and we've been essentially in the same era ever since. Backlund's last title reign was two eras after his prior one (including hopping over one of the big two eras, the longer of the two). Warrior left at the end of one era and reappeared in another.

These days we're still in whatever you call the Cena era, even though specifically John Cena is not around to cut promos on people for not being around anymore.

King of Kings was the best of the lot. Not sure why it was the least used.

As a quick sidetrack, my uncle once threw Motorhead out of his apartment. Said they were too loud. True story.

Yep, very true. I think the RA era died in June 2007.

I watched from birth, and it was in 4th grade that my mom married my stepdad and we no longer got cable for 3 years (un****ingfathomable now) and we got Dish in 7th grade. By then I was no longer watching new wrestling independently.

That sign is awesome.

“They shouldn’t even call it the Royal Rumble. They should call it the Double J Rumble!” Stellar mic work, Jeff.

I'm afraid I need explanation.

It's with good reason if you don't remember "Make a Difference" Fatu.



I believe he was on one In Your House in that gimmick before disappearing again and eventually reappearing as an ally of Too Cool.

Lol. I do vaguely remember that time.

Commissioner Shawn Michaels to Xpac: "If I wanted crap out of you, I'd pick it out of your teeth." I like it. Somehow seems unique.

FYP

Lol! Nice read.

I liked the time that Austin and Michaels were having a face-off, Michaels was clearly ****ing hammered, and he slurred his way through a sentence, saying, “You’re saying you’re gonna kick your teeth down my throat?” Austin just quickly disposed of it with, “Damn right,” and the promo went on.

Road Warrior Hawk made a WWE promo career out of would-be funny lines that were never actually funny, and Vince would then do his exaggerated “HYUK HYUK HYUK” laugh to put it over anyway. But the week after this Austin/Michaels promo, he did get me by capping a promo at both of them with, “We’re gonna do what you threatened to do last week: we’re gonna kick Steve Austin’s teeth down Shawn Michaels’s throat!”

How about an unintentionally Road Warriors promo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I60Ez67ullU

I much preferred Animal over Hawk on the mic.

Welllllll! Thats incorrect!

Oh, were you the one person in the focus group telling Vince that Hawk's REALLY CLEVER zingers were actually clever?

They appear to have built an actual short-term angle in early 2000 around The Rock saying that he would beat 29 jabronis in the Royal Rumble, and the Big Show taking great offense and saying, "hey, I'm not a jabroni, that's out of line." They're fighting about it for the second straight week.

I think that Boss Man kicking out of the Perfectplex at WrestleMania VII en route to a draw and no further push was one of the dumber finisher kickouts ever. It was well before the grisly murder of the shocking kickout, and I don't know what it was supposed to be in service of. There was really no suggestion that the company ever liked Boss Man more than Perfect, nor any further push that suggests that protecting the Boss Man was anything they generally cared about.

Unlike the murder of the Intercontinental Title that occurred irrevocably as soon as Val Venis got his hands on it, this kickout I'm referencing did not destroy the kickout in general - that happened later - but it just looks well out of place in the era before the kickout was ravaged to death.

I just watched Wrestlemania XV for what I think was the first time. Just felt like an episode of Raw. Underaker v Bossman in a hell in a cell for some reason.

COULD IT BE SYMBOLIC?!