The AE is the most overrated era in the long history of pro wrestling in any country
90% of it was an embarrassment. They just had two of the three biggest stars in the history of american wrestling combined with the greatest heel in the history of american wrestling
All the other garbage just went along for the ride
Pure nostalgia. Thanks for the network I was able to go back and review all of those Raws and a lot of those pay-per-views. (even though I've had two cardboard boxes stacked with VHS tapes of pay-per-views that I recorded from 1997 all the way through to about 2005) I found that, while very nostalgic, the work rate and the angles ran we're
so unpolished, so unorganized. WWE can put on a lot of cheesy shit nowadays but they've learned how to do their thing a lot better than they had it down 20 goddamn years ago.
And you can go back and look at the Attitude Era all you want. You can go back and watch as much NWO as you want... it ain't 1997 anymore, it's really hard to catch that vibe that we all had back then. The East Coast West Coast rap wars it's hardly even relevant law as it pertains to Modern hip-hop. It's not even a thing. The 90s had this identity, it was just different. More edgy. More violent. Movies like Fight Club and Heat world the day, not cookie-cutter superhero nerdgasm bullshit. No. Gritty and real ruled the day.
The edginess that came with just about everything on cable TV in the late 90s is no longer Taboo, it's practically frowned upon.
You can find it, you can find that somewhere on your satellite or cable, but that's because it's buried in the Labyrinth of your 400 channel package..... absolutely none of us watch the same shit anymore, listen to the same shit anymore, and more importantly we don't like the same shit anymore. There's so many options out there that we have all branched out into our own individual thread, so to speak.
Back then we were riding the pop culture wave together.
And while I do miss some of the violence that came with the Attitude Era, the fact that they have toned it down so much makes it much more impactful whenever something fairly violent does happen on television. The only thing I would change is that their threshold for the violence would rise, when the situation calls for it and also perhaps just a little bit more frequently. Just a little bit. Like, not just WrestleMania season.
Aside from that, right now is my favorite era. If we could just get HBK to quit being stubborn and come in and do a 12-month tour they legendary work-rate matches with the legs of Nakamura, AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor... you wouldn't be able to even touch this area as it pertains to what goes down in between those ring ropes.