This may not be your typical "Attitude Era was awesome because ..." and "WWE sucks now because ..." thread. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite.
I've been looking back at full episodes of WWE from that beloved Attitude Era right around that boom period in 1998, 1999 and 2000. That's when WWE had some of their highest PPV buys on average. Some of those PPV buy numbers have yet to be replicated or come close even today. Strangely enough WrestleMania is one of the few PPVs that has seen higher buys in the last 3-4 years than they ever saw before. But that is an anomaly as virtually every other PPV especially SummerSlam has seen consistent reduction in PPV buys since 1998.
Ok, so why was the Attitude Era so great?
- It was in that perfect, never able to be replicated again period, where people still weren't 100% sure if Pro Wrestling was real and since crazy stuff was going on in WWE (and WCW) people were interested. Sure, Vince came out and admitted it was scripted but the booming popularity was already there and wasn't going away just yet.
- WWE had serious competition in WCW. WCW did something on national TV probably never before seen on TV before ... have a group take over a TV Show - AKA the NWO took over WCW with 3 of the biggest names in the industry.
- WWE countered with corrupt factions such as The Corporation, Nation of Domination and DX.
- WWE also has pretty much the first ever employee fighting ruthlessly against their employer doing crazy stuff to their boss that a lot of us wished we could do or we just enjoyed seeing happen - AKA Stone Cold vs Vince McMahon.
- What the Attitude Era had were things that had never been done before any significant scale. WWE also had a Hardcore division which was brutal as hell but damn if it wasn't something that caught your attention.
- And some might say the Attitude Era was so great because there was blood, sex and swearing.
But, how did the Attitude Era actually suck?
- People who grew up in that era and loved it tend to only remember the best parts and don't remember a lot of the stupid stuff that we get so mad at WWE for doing today that they did back in the Attitude Era too!
- Illogical booking! That's probably the biggest one. Go back and look at a go-home Raw or a PPV. They are NOT all well-built. Be honest and you will agree they aren't all golden. Look at a go-home Raw and you'll see maybe only 3 or 4 matches for the upcoming PPV addressed in any way. Look at a PPV card and you'll see only ONE title being defended (probably the WWE title) and you'll see a bunch of 'personal feud' matches that have no title implications or any other significant implications but they are on a PPV that got huge buys. Why? Well in that era's time it was because the WWF title picture was captivating enough with Stone Cold, Rock, Taker, Kane, Mankind, McMahon etc. all involved that people I guess weren't as critical of the rest of the card because they loved the main event so much.
- Useless "comedy" matches. Look at any Oddities or Head Bangers segment. It's a big joke just like you might say Santino Marella was or Fandango or Adam Rose is now but they had silly characters back then too!
- Title holders left off the card. Go-home Raws and PPVs where every title holder doesn't really have a feud or anything going for them. Yet these folks should all having SOMETHING going for them but not always. Happens today too but people complain about it more.
- Super short segments or matches. Yes, the Attitude Era also had matches that were "squashes" of well-known guys or beat downs shortly after a match started. People complain today because not enough matches have 'finishes' but in the Attitude Era there was more chaos and less actual GOOD wrestling. Most of wrestling back then was just killing time until a big run-in angle. Maybe WWE needs more of that today but you have to admit WWE does give a lot more quality matches in all their programming now than they did before.
So why does "WWE suck" so much now?
- Illogical booking
- Useless "comedy" matches/segments
- Title holders left off card/without a feud
- Short segments or matches
See what I did there?
WWE isn't actually much worse today than it was in the beloved Attitude Era unless you only loved the Attitude Era because it had blood, sex and swearing. If you loved it because of that then, yes, it 'sucks' today because that aspect of it is not coming back.
What happened in the Attitude Era was truly unique. It really can't be replicated.
TV was different back then. Less channels and Internet was so sophisticated like today that made it easy to find spoilers and watch PPVs or shows any other way than they provided it. YouTube, believe it or not, was not around during the Attitude Era.
And yes, WCW was a legit threat and competition breeds innovation and demands quality.
Today, there are thousands of TV channels, millions of Internet sites and YouTube shows and Netflix and all sorts of other programming that simply doesn't give WWE the same possibility for ratings and buys that they once had.
Once the cat was let out of the bag by Vince, WCW was over, WWE went more PG, a bunch of fans slowly started to be done with pro wrestling. WWE (and WCW) did their big angles and now if they tried them again people would just go 'Lame! Been done before!" Those are the fans you can't get back. They loved the Attitude Era and anything done now is either not gritty enough or has been done before.
What I'm trying to say is. The Attitude Era was a rare and special time of Pro Wrestling that I cannot see ever being replicated again. It was a case of the right place at the right time with the right cast of characters and the right competition. That chuck of "pro wrestling" fans that left around 2003 and on aren't coming back because they may have loved the Attitude Era for R-rated reasons and they are now fans of Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy or Game of Thrones. Obviously, they can't be interested in WWE anymore because it can't be like those shows.
What WWE has to do is realize that to get new fans they need to start young again and find out what the youngsters want while trying to still give hardcore, diehard fans what they want. When you think of it that way, you realize why John Cena is on top of the card all the time and there is Hornswoggle and a Bunny running around from time to time and then sometimes you'll see a hard-hitting match like The Shield vs Wyatt Family for the hardcore fans.
WWE still has to find a better balance though. Their ratings and PPV buys are lower than they could be. They won't get back up to 400,000 PPV buys (except WM) and won't get back up to 10 Million viewers but they should still aim for 200,000 buys on reg. PPVs and 300,000 buys on the big ones and 4 million viewers for Raw.
My questions to you are:
Do you agree with my assessment of the Attitude Era vs Toady's WWE?
and
Understanding that WWE isn't going back to TV-14 stuff anytime soon and they do have to cater to the kids while still pleasing the diehard hardcore fans, what are 3-5 simple steps they can take to do that?
I've been looking back at full episodes of WWE from that beloved Attitude Era right around that boom period in 1998, 1999 and 2000. That's when WWE had some of their highest PPV buys on average. Some of those PPV buy numbers have yet to be replicated or come close even today. Strangely enough WrestleMania is one of the few PPVs that has seen higher buys in the last 3-4 years than they ever saw before. But that is an anomaly as virtually every other PPV especially SummerSlam has seen consistent reduction in PPV buys since 1998.
Ok, so why was the Attitude Era so great?
- It was in that perfect, never able to be replicated again period, where people still weren't 100% sure if Pro Wrestling was real and since crazy stuff was going on in WWE (and WCW) people were interested. Sure, Vince came out and admitted it was scripted but the booming popularity was already there and wasn't going away just yet.
- WWE had serious competition in WCW. WCW did something on national TV probably never before seen on TV before ... have a group take over a TV Show - AKA the NWO took over WCW with 3 of the biggest names in the industry.
- WWE countered with corrupt factions such as The Corporation, Nation of Domination and DX.
- WWE also has pretty much the first ever employee fighting ruthlessly against their employer doing crazy stuff to their boss that a lot of us wished we could do or we just enjoyed seeing happen - AKA Stone Cold vs Vince McMahon.
- What the Attitude Era had were things that had never been done before any significant scale. WWE also had a Hardcore division which was brutal as hell but damn if it wasn't something that caught your attention.
- And some might say the Attitude Era was so great because there was blood, sex and swearing.
But, how did the Attitude Era actually suck?
- People who grew up in that era and loved it tend to only remember the best parts and don't remember a lot of the stupid stuff that we get so mad at WWE for doing today that they did back in the Attitude Era too!
- Illogical booking! That's probably the biggest one. Go back and look at a go-home Raw or a PPV. They are NOT all well-built. Be honest and you will agree they aren't all golden. Look at a go-home Raw and you'll see maybe only 3 or 4 matches for the upcoming PPV addressed in any way. Look at a PPV card and you'll see only ONE title being defended (probably the WWE title) and you'll see a bunch of 'personal feud' matches that have no title implications or any other significant implications but they are on a PPV that got huge buys. Why? Well in that era's time it was because the WWF title picture was captivating enough with Stone Cold, Rock, Taker, Kane, Mankind, McMahon etc. all involved that people I guess weren't as critical of the rest of the card because they loved the main event so much.
- Useless "comedy" matches. Look at any Oddities or Head Bangers segment. It's a big joke just like you might say Santino Marella was or Fandango or Adam Rose is now but they had silly characters back then too!
- Title holders left off the card. Go-home Raws and PPVs where every title holder doesn't really have a feud or anything going for them. Yet these folks should all having SOMETHING going for them but not always. Happens today too but people complain about it more.
- Super short segments or matches. Yes, the Attitude Era also had matches that were "squashes" of well-known guys or beat downs shortly after a match started. People complain today because not enough matches have 'finishes' but in the Attitude Era there was more chaos and less actual GOOD wrestling. Most of wrestling back then was just killing time until a big run-in angle. Maybe WWE needs more of that today but you have to admit WWE does give a lot more quality matches in all their programming now than they did before.
So why does "WWE suck" so much now?
- Illogical booking
- Useless "comedy" matches/segments
- Title holders left off card/without a feud
- Short segments or matches
See what I did there?
WWE isn't actually much worse today than it was in the beloved Attitude Era unless you only loved the Attitude Era because it had blood, sex and swearing. If you loved it because of that then, yes, it 'sucks' today because that aspect of it is not coming back.
What happened in the Attitude Era was truly unique. It really can't be replicated.
TV was different back then. Less channels and Internet was so sophisticated like today that made it easy to find spoilers and watch PPVs or shows any other way than they provided it. YouTube, believe it or not, was not around during the Attitude Era.
And yes, WCW was a legit threat and competition breeds innovation and demands quality.
Today, there are thousands of TV channels, millions of Internet sites and YouTube shows and Netflix and all sorts of other programming that simply doesn't give WWE the same possibility for ratings and buys that they once had.
Once the cat was let out of the bag by Vince, WCW was over, WWE went more PG, a bunch of fans slowly started to be done with pro wrestling. WWE (and WCW) did their big angles and now if they tried them again people would just go 'Lame! Been done before!" Those are the fans you can't get back. They loved the Attitude Era and anything done now is either not gritty enough or has been done before.
What I'm trying to say is. The Attitude Era was a rare and special time of Pro Wrestling that I cannot see ever being replicated again. It was a case of the right place at the right time with the right cast of characters and the right competition. That chuck of "pro wrestling" fans that left around 2003 and on aren't coming back because they may have loved the Attitude Era for R-rated reasons and they are now fans of Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy or Game of Thrones. Obviously, they can't be interested in WWE anymore because it can't be like those shows.
What WWE has to do is realize that to get new fans they need to start young again and find out what the youngsters want while trying to still give hardcore, diehard fans what they want. When you think of it that way, you realize why John Cena is on top of the card all the time and there is Hornswoggle and a Bunny running around from time to time and then sometimes you'll see a hard-hitting match like The Shield vs Wyatt Family for the hardcore fans.
WWE still has to find a better balance though. Their ratings and PPV buys are lower than they could be. They won't get back up to 400,000 PPV buys (except WM) and won't get back up to 10 Million viewers but they should still aim for 200,000 buys on reg. PPVs and 300,000 buys on the big ones and 4 million viewers for Raw.
My questions to you are:
Do you agree with my assessment of the Attitude Era vs Toady's WWE?
and
Understanding that WWE isn't going back to TV-14 stuff anytime soon and they do have to cater to the kids while still pleasing the diehard hardcore fans, what are 3-5 simple steps they can take to do that?
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