Deconstructing the Attitude Era

   In a recent edition of my company's wrestling podcast, information of which can be found below the blog, my colleagues and I discussed the notion of wrestling being for kids.  The reason for the discussion was a listener criticized those on the podcast who have children being bad parents because their kids watch wrestling.  Whenever someone wants to debate the argument, they inevitably bring up the Attitude Era, a time we can all agree was not for kids.  However, what people fail to realize is that the Attitude Era was basically a necessary evil.  Often fans of today who watched during that time claim that wrestling was better than it is today and it's all due to the rating.  While that time period was admittedly WWE's most profitable, I don't think it's fair to say the TV-14 rating back then is the reason.  That kind of rating doesn't necessarily mean quality.

   Just after the infamous Montreal Screwjob, Vince McMahon was finally outed on wrestling television as the owner of the World Wrestling Federation.  The Mr. McMahon character was born and McMahon's feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin eventually catapulted the WWF back to the mainstream, competed fiercely with WCW, and ultimately won what was known as the Monday Night War.  Here's where it all gets lost in translation!  Going that more adult-oriented route was never McMahon's intention.  He was quite content with keeping the product kid-friendly.  However, during the Monday Night War, it was cutthroat and there were many times where his company might have been on the verge of going out of business.  Vince McMahon adjusted accordingly and did what he had to do to survive.  As I said earlier, the Attitude Era was a necessary evil and many forget about that.  As a kid, I grew up watching the Hulkamania Era and as I became a teenager, I witnessed the Attitude Era.  I'm at the age where I grew up watching the product in two completely different, yet most mainstream time periods, both as a kid and as a teenager.  However, being the average horny teenage male at the time, it's no wonder I enjoyed the Attitude Era, as it was certainly not for children.  

   For a long period of time during the Monday Night War, WCW was often beating the WWF in the ratings on a weekly basis.  In 1995, Ted Turner set Eric Bischoff loose with his money to scoop up big stars and compete with the WWF's Monday Night Raw in the form of WCW Monday Nitro.  By that time, WCW had already acquired Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage.  During the first broadcast of Nitro, Lex Lugar showed up, just days after last being seen working WWF shows.  At the time, Lugar had been working with somewhat of a spoken word contract, meaning he had no ties to the WWF. When Scott Hall and Kevin Nash came to WCW, the WWF created air tight - no compete clause contracts.

 Soon after, Hall and Nash joined with a now heel Hulk Hogan, creating the New World Order (nWo) and the WWF was really in trouble. Another shot fired by WCW was in December of 1995.  WWF Women's Champion Alundra Blayze, also known as Madusa, appeared on WCW Monday Nitro with her Title. She proceeded to talk smack about the WWF and dropped the WWF Women's Championship belt into a trash can.  In a way, this moment led to the Montreal Screwjob, as Vince might have been afraid Bret Hart would do something similar with the WWF World Heavyweight Title.

   The WWF was still in the New Generation and while they had great wrestlers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, they still used cartoon-like gimmicks that worked years earlier.  The product started to get a little edgier when the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Brian Pillman came to the WWF in 1996.  However, it wasn't until the end of 1997 that Vince McMahon would coin the phrase "Attitude Era."  Along with Austin's foul mouth, were other edgier gimmicks.  Triple H dropped his Greenwhich snob persona, as he and Chyna joined Shawn Michaels to create Degeneration X, who caused chaos and did what they wanted, telling people to "suck it!"  The Nation of Domination became more like a Nation of Islam/Black Panthers movement, there was factional warfare, and women like Sunny and Sable became sex symbols, often wearing very little.

   WCW was firmly beating the WWF in the ratings during those years.  Vince McMahon was simply trying to survive.  Bret Hart for one, didn't like the direction the WWF was going but McMahon did not want to go out of business. By 1998, WCW was winning the war by a large margin.  The nWo split into factions, creating the extremely popular Wolfpack, Goldberg was on the rise, and Sting was excelling with a much darker character.  In response, the WWF brought in Kane as the Undertaker's brother, the Nation's Kama Mustafa became a pimp called the Godfather, and they even had a porn star wrestler named Val Venis.  Vince was pulling out all the stops and doing whatever it took to get the ratings back.  Mick Foley's character at the time was the deranged Mankind, but every once in a while, he would bring out the hardcore legend Cactus Jack and the fun-loving Dude Love.  More violent matches began taking place, such as Hell In a Cell. One such match featured the Undertaker throwing Mankind off the top of the Cell through the commentary table.  The fall caused Foley's tooth to go through his lip and into his nose.  Foley climbed back up only to be choke slammed through the Cell.  It was certainly a gruesome sight!

   Though both companies started doing more edgy and reality-based things, the real credit has to go to Paul Heyman's ECW.  ECW was able to bring the hardcore style of wrestling to the main stage.  WCW and the WWF both took things they saw from ECW.  WCW for instance, took talent such as technicians like Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and Eddie Guerrero.  They also perfected a Cruiserweight Division, stealing ECW Luchadores like Rey Misterio, Juventud Guerrera, and Psicosis.  The WWF, on the other hand, adopted a more hardcore lifestyle and eventually signed ECW mainstays like Taz and the Dudley Boys.  ECW was a true pioneer and one of the reasons for both of the big companies to become more successful.

   One of the things Eric Bischoff used to do to make sure Nitro was winning was to give away the WWF's results.  At the time, every other Monday Night Raw was taped so Bischoff would give away Raw results during Nitro.  This tactic worked big time but eventually, it backfired in a spectacular way.  During the January 4th, 1999 broadcast of WCW Monday Nitro, Bischoff instructed commentator Tony Shiavone to give away Raw's results, as they normally did.  He emphasized that Mankind was going to win the WWF World Title and sarcastically said: "that'll put butts in seats!"  Unfortunately for WCW, millions around the world changed the channel to see Monday Night Raw and watch Mankind win the big one.  I should know, as I was one of those people.  This particular Nitro also included a segment that many call the beginning of the end for WCW, as WCW World Champion Kevin Nash laid down for Hulk Hogan in the infamous "Fingerpoke of Doom" segment.

   Eventually, many factors led to WCW's demise in 2001. It was a combination of bad decisions, wrestlers like Hogan and Nash booking themselves, and a change in office personnel, among many other factors.  However, the WWF also continued to do things out of the box and sooner or later were just straight up a more entertaining product.  Vince McMahon's WWF won the Monday Night War in the end.  When WCW starting gathering up many WWF talents, Vince fought back.  He came up with a much edgier product and eventually a simply more superior product.  Vince had to do something drastic if he was to save what his grandfather and father built many years ago.  He survived both the steroid trial and the Monday Night War, things that would destroy any other company.

 If you think I'm painting the Attitude Era as the best thing to happen in wrestling, think again!  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Attitude Era! I was also an impressionable teenager and it was my cup of tea.  You'd often find me walking down the halls of my high school wearing an Austin 3:16 shirt.  The Attitude Era was around during most of my time in College as well.  I remember going to a WrestleMania XVII party on campus.  I think many people fondly look back at the Attitude Era wearing rose-colored glasses, however!  Not everything during this time was a winner.  For every Stone Cold, there was a Naked Midean.  For every "If ya smell what The Rock is cooking," there was a Truth Commission.  As many great gimmicks as there were during that time, there were also things not as entertaining.  I liked the Attitude Era but it wasn't perfect.  That's what I'm trying to point out!  People act is if everything during the Attitude Era struck gold and it's simply not the case.

   Again, I'll go back to what I said earlier.  Doing a more raunchy show was not something Vince McMahon wanted to do.  It was a drastic measure taken for drastic times.  It was survival at that point!  The Monday Night War, along with the influence of ECW, was a do or die time.  DX even came to a WCW arena where Nitro was taking place with a tank of all things!  How much more of a war reference do you need to understand what was happening?  It was a crazy time in wrestling and a very profitable time as well.  If there was no ratings war, I doubt either company would have gone to the lengths they did, especially the WWF.  Here's the thing, though!  It was a different time in the world.  I don't think that kind of wrestling programming would fly these days.  After the Chris Benoit incident almost single-handedly crippled the wrestling industry, the WWF decided to go a more PG route.  While there are restrictions that WWE's sponsors want them to make, a simple rating is not going to make or break things.  Bad writing is bad writing, plain and simple!  Going to an edgy product right now will not guarantee a better product.  Another problem I want to address is that since WCW and ECW went away, WWE's basically had a monopoly in the wrestling business.  Without serious competition, it caused somewhat of a lackadaisical attitude on WWE's part at times.

   What I'm trying to point out is that for every time period, you can find both good and bad.  While many things were a little corny in the New Generation, you could still find positives.  In contrast, the Golden Era and Attitude Era, while praised, are also not without faults.  I'm not trying to put down the Attitude Era, as I did enjoy it at the time.  However, I'm not going to lie and tell you it was all coming up roses.  At the end of the day, a real wrestling fan will identify both the positive and the negative, and not focus too much on a certain perspective.  While today's wrestling product may not be everyone's cup of tea, you can't tell me with a straight face that you can't find one single thing to be positive about.  After all, wrestling is a variety show, with something for everybody.  That being said, with the extreme exception of the Attitute Era, wrestling was and is a product geared mostly towards children.  For every kid with a Hulkamania product when I grew up, there's a kid today with a John Cena shirt.  You can love the Attitude Era all you want but the reality is, not everything was perfect!

If you have any further thoughts on this topic, let me know in comments.  Heck, let us all know on The WAR Report podcast, every Tuesday at 7PM EST on YouTube, brought to you by tagmeadate.com, the first and only dating site for wrestling fans.  Go to askthewarreport@gmail.com or #askthewarreport.  For TagMeADate members, our Android and Apple apps are vastly approaching so stay tuned!
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