What do you remember from the environment in which the Attitude Era blossomed?

[CrucifiedRaven]

Originally Posted by Moneyinc

At my middle school, a huge majority of the male's were into wrestling. Pretty much every kid on my sports teams would watch while about 50 percent were near obsessed. Even the ones who had not been into it before people like Kane, and Stone Cold made it popular. Stone Cold especially. I had one friend who literally went around stunning as many people as he could while Stone Cold was doing it one Raw weekly before the rumble. My buddy would kick a kid in the knee so they bent over, and then he would proceed to try to stun them. Ha after he finished we would discuss how good the stunner was executed. There were also certain kids who were higher on the list than others because of various real life reasons like "he was flirting with my girlfriend." I actually remember ONE friend of mine who didn't like wrestling, and even still would watch for Kane. It was so popular at the time that you felt like your were missing out if you didn't watch it.

I don't know what the guy above me is talking about, but in middle school in 1997 in Champaign Illinois, WWF and WCW were HOT.

I still remember specifically finding out certain friends of mine were watching wrestling weekly, while I thought they never would have been. I was in 6th grade in 1997. 6th, 7th, and 8th grade WWF had my middle school by the balls. From what I've heard from older friends from my town is that it was pretty darn popular around the High School at that time too.

One thing that was huge about the Attitude era was the gimmicks these groups were coming up with. The NWO wolf pack had the little Wolf Pac handshake thing that people did where they just touch hands or whatever with other members of the pack. That was big because you felt like you were in a group and it just felt really cool to do it.

Dx's suck it was also huge. At first it was the "Suck it" but not in the form of an "x." Then when they changed the suck it action to crossing your arms and then doing the "suck it," it seriously caught momentum.

The attitude era was great for kids who wanted to be "cool." All that mattered was being cool in middle school and being able to walk around with an attitude, and different slogans and things to bust out at your disposal are huge reasons as to why the WWF's attitude era was so priceless.

The Hulkamaniac era was great for young kids. All of those characters were catered more towards younger children than the Attitude era.

Yup. "Suck it", "Lay the Smackdown", "Candy ass", "Hell yah" were all common phrases in my high school at the time. nWo shirts. 3:16 shirts. Middle fingers were all out in full force amongst the guys in the school.

But bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Rage Against The Machine were also the most popular bands amongst the same guys. Jerry Springer was actually popular back then on TV too. It was no doubt a testosterone fuelled age. And WWE took full advantage of it.

The attitude era wouldn't work today without all of these other factors. I don't know what happened in the late 90s that made teenage angst swell so much. And I don't know what WWE needs to do to get back to another boom period that reflects today's society..

I actually think UFC stole the WWE's chance at their next boom period. By then everyone knew wrestling was fake. There wasn't smut and swearing on TV in the current product. But young males still want to see people get knocked out. And UFC was edgy and it was real. And it blew up big time. Whereas in the past, this type of attention may have gone to professional wrestling.

[Flying Fox]

I loved the 90s. The late-90s/early 00's especially. What a great time to be alive.

Culturally, I would say that the crash TV, sleazeness etc. had already peaked before the attitude Era and in 1999 it was all-but-dead. Certainly by late '99, the 'attitude' in society was not geared so much towards sleaze, where it really had been in late-95 to 98.

I was thinking about this the other day: In the height of the Attitude Era, the smarks were spitting their dummies because 'that [the Attitude Era] isn't what wrestling should be.' If you could timewarp back to 1998/1999 and browse through chatrooms and forums, you would see the 'smarks' shitting the bed about the Attitude Era, the same way people do about today's product. That's always really astounded me, especially considering how revered that era is today. In 1999, the Attitude Era was reviled by the smarts and now it's the holy grail.

I guess you just can't please 'em.

Another talking point that I've found doesn't really exist all that much since about the mid-2000s, but I've been particularly observant of this over the years since I'm a musician. Wrestling seemed to be 'behind the culture' by a couple of years and I can use the musical cultures as a reference.

In 1993 when Grunge was at it's climax, WWF still felt very 80s with the bright-colored attires, characters and bad hair

In 1998 when the boy bands and the tweeny pop like NSync and Brittany Spears was breaking through, the WWF had finally caught up to the 'grunge' kind of style. A more adult-styled rock was in and the young people were catching on to NuMetal, which was a much different movement than grunge in my professional and personal opinion. In-fact, the only time I saw any sign of mirroring in WWF was with the Headbangers, who listened to Marilyn Manson and Pantera (who were almost out the door at that time) and Slipknot.

I've always felt that wrestling is best served in its own little world. Much like music, it's impact on the 'mainstream' cannot and should not be forced. It should break on through to the other side when the people inside wrestling's bubble get so loud that everybody else can't help but take notice. That's what happened in the late-90s and that's why I don't think it will happen again any time soon.

The wrestling business seems to be trying to force it's way above ground and in my opinion, when you do that, you alienate your core audience - and everybody else who doesn't like your product just wonders what the fuck you're doing.

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Originally Posted by Flying Fox

I loved the 90s. The late-90s/early 00's especially. What a great time to be alive.

Culturally, I would say that the crash TV, sleazeness etc. had already peaked before the attitude Era and in 1999 it was all-but-dead. Certainly by late '99, the 'attitude' in society was not geared so much towards sleaze, where it really had been in late-95 to 98.

I was thinking about this the other day: In the height of the Attitude Era, the smarks were spitting their dummies because 'that [the Attitude Era] isn't what wrestling should be.' If you could timewarp back to 1998/1999 and browse through chatrooms and forums, you would see the 'smarks' shitting the bed about the Attitude Era, the same way people do about today's product. That's always really astounded me, especially considering how revered that era is today. In 1999, the Attitude Era was reviled by the smarts and now it's the holy grail.

I guess you just can't please 'em.

Another talking point that I've found doesn't really exist all that much since about the mid-2000s, but I've been particularly observant of this over the years since I'm a musician. Wrestling seemed to be 'behind the culture' by a couple of years and I can use the musical cultures as a reference.

In 1993 when Grunge was at it's climax, WWF still felt very 80s with the bright-colored attires, characters and bad hair

In 1998 when the boy bands and the tweeny pop like NSync and Brittany Spears was breaking through, the WWF had finally caught up to the 'grunge' kind of style. A more adult-styled rock was in and the young people were catching on to NuMetal, which was a much different movement than grunge in my professional and personal opinion. In-fact, the only time I saw any sign of mirroring in WWF was with the Headbangers, who listened to Marilyn Manson and Pantera (who were almost out the door at that time) and Slipknot.

I've always felt that wrestling is best served in its own little world. Much like music, it's impact on the 'mainstream' cannot and should not be forced. It should break on through to the other side when the people inside wrestling's bubble get so loud that everybody else can't help but take notice. That's what happened in the late-90s and that's why I don't think it will happen again any time soon.

The wrestling business seems to be trying to force it's way above ground and in my opinion, when you do that, you alienate your core audience - and everybody else who doesn't like your product just wonders what the fuck you're doing.

You can't cherry pick like that. There were boy bands in the late 90s, but there was also Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. Kid Rock/Bizkit and the Tude era are perfect. Loud, raunchy, no real merit, kinda white trashy, and if you go back and actually listen to it, you realize "oh yea, I was 12-16 and that's why this seemed cool...it's kinda dumb...what the fuck does that even mean?"

[Flying Fox]

Originally Posted by TWJC: The Beginning

You can't cherry pick like that. There were boy bands in the late 90s, but there was also Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. Kid Rock/Bizkit and the Tude era are perfect. Loud, raunchy, no real merit, kinda white trashy, and if you go back and actually listen to it, you realize "oh yea, I was 12-16 and that's why this seemed cool...it's kinda dumb...what the fuck does that even mean?"

I see what you're saying and I'm not denying any of that. NuMetal did fit nicely. I personally have just always entertained the idea that the culture of early-90s + late-90s wrestling seemed like it could have been a better fit.

[THTRobtaylor]

I hate when people just use Austin and Hogan because you miss the guy who actually fathered "Attitude in Wrestling"... Brian Pillman.

Pillman was the first guy to take what was going on outside on shows like Springer and Stern and push the boundaries in WCW. The famous "Respect" match with Kevin Sullivan where he unscripted, walked out on a PPV match was the first shot, but within weeks he had caused the first F-Bomb in anger (not counting Davey's "He fell on his fookin arse" for the Shockmaster or Booker's blunder) when he grabbed Bobby Heenan who swore at him, again totally unscripted and unexpected.

Pillman was the guy who went to ECW and threatened to piss in the ring, despite being near crippled and the Philly crowd wanting to kill him for it...and when the time came, a full half hour before Austin 3:16 he gave an equally important debut and later pulled a gun on live TV. The tragedy of Pillman is huge, a) that he overcame cancer to do what he did, only to die that way but more importantly b) that his true part in the creating of a phenomenon is airbrushed over by history... If I get one campaign going it'd be "Pillman for HOF or we riot!"

In 1995 there was a shift to gritty realism in TV and film and more importantly, a general shift in the tolerance towards swearing (In the 80's a Springer episode with multiple bleeps would not even air, by '95 it was a ratings winner.) and a turn away from colorful, safe characters. Look at how bad Batman Forever did compared to Returns...Famously Seven was denied Oscars due to it's "tone", despite the head of the Oscars committee admitting it (and Brad Pitt) should have won. Moviegoers and wrestling fans were ready to go to darker places but media wasn't and that's why 95 WWE was suffering so badly as all they had was camp. Ironically the best character to come out of that era was Waylon Mercy, and very soon we'll see the new version in Bray Wyatt.

Hogan didn't create the NWO, he didn't do anything other than "turn bad". That he then chose to wear black is almost academic as he took on what Nash and Hall had done rather than instigate. Hogan himself was a massive part of the "cheese" of early-mid 90's culture with the terrible "Thunder In Paradise" and "aging surfer dude" persona he was putting out into the media and his cronyism and terrible booking in WCW had got to the point of fans being asked to pay $50 to see him dry humped by THE YETTEEHHH.

So we had a Wrestling biz desperate for change, a man who started it in Brian Pillman, a guy who made the "one man vs the world" mentality popular in Austin and in the NWO a group of renegades who could call the shots over "Billionaire Ted". Exactly what the world was looking for, they were fed up of safe, namby pamby and doing as they were told and for a few years (untill the NWO became parody and Austin aligned with Vince) they could do that vicariously through wrestling. It was suddenly ok to know what "Ho's, Pimping, Money Shot and Puppies" meant, but also to use those terms in everyday life or to tell your boss to "Suck It", so wrestling did change the world in it's way.

[HBsam31]

Originally Posted by CrucifiedRaven

Yup. "Suck it", "Lay the Smackdown", "Candy ass", "Hell yah" were all common phrases in my high school at the time. nWo shirts. 3:16 shirts. Middle fingers were all out in full force amongst the guys in the school.

But bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Rage Against The Machine were also the most popular bands amongst the same guys. Jerry Springer was actually popular back then on TV too. It was no doubt a testosterone fuelled age. And WWE took full advantage of it.

The attitude era wouldn't work today without all of these other factors. I don't know what happened in the late 90s that made teenage angst swell so much. And I don't know what WWE needs to do to get back to another boom period that reflects today's society..

I actually think UFC stole the WWE's chance at their next boom period. By then everyone knew wrestling was fake. There wasn't smut and swearing on TV in the current product. But young males still want to see people get knocked out. And UFC was edgy and it was real. And it blew up big time. Whereas in the past, this type of attention may have gone to professional wrestling.

This pretty much sums it up. I was a junior and senior in HS at this time, and the anti authority thing worked to perfection. We crotch chopped in the halls, flipped people off, told each other to suck it. It was a very very fun time to be a wrestling fan, and if you weren't you became one at that time because it was the cool thing to do. Even the girls knew who everyone was and would watch ppvs with us. The bands at the time were kind of the same style, and for the love of God Jerry Springer was a hugely popular show lol. WWE made their product to what was going on at the time and what the male demographic wanted, and it created the most popular time in wrestling history.

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Originally Posted by Moneyinc

At my middle school, a huge majority of the male's were into wrestling. Pretty much every kid on my sports teams would watch while about 50 percent were near obsessed. Even the ones who had not been into it before people like Kane, and Stone Cold made it popular. Stone Cold especially. I had one friend who literally went around stunning as many people as he could while Stone Cold was doing it one Raw weekly before the rumble. My buddy would kick a kid in the knee so they bent over, and then he would proceed to try to stun them. Ha after he finished we would discuss how good the stunner was executed. There were also certain kids who were higher on the list than others because of various real life reasons like "he was flirting with my girlfriend." I actually remember ONE friend of mine who didn't like wrestling, and even still would watch for Kane. It was so popular at the time that you felt like your were missing out if you didn't watch it.

I don't know what the guy above me is talking about, but in middle school in 1997 in Champaign Illinois, WWF and WCW were HOT.

I still remember specifically finding out certain friends of mine were watching wrestling weekly, while I thought they never would have been. I was in 6th grade in 1997. 6th, 7th, and 8th grade WWF had my middle school by the balls. From what I've heard from older friends from my town is that it was pretty darn popular around the High School at that time too.

One thing that was huge about the Attitude era was the gimmicks these groups were coming up with. The NWO wolf pack had the little Wolf Pac handshake thing that people did where they just touch hands or whatever with other members of the pack. That was big because you felt like you were in a group and it just felt really cool to do it.

Dx's suck it was also huge. At first it was the "Suck it" but not in the form of an "x." Then when they changed the suck it action to crossing your arms and then doing the "suck it," it seriously caught momentum.

The attitude era was great for kids who wanted to be "cool." All that mattered was being cool in middle school and being able to walk around with an attitude, and different slogans and things to bust out at your disposal are huge reasons as to why the WWF's attitude era was so priceless.

The Hulkamaniac era was great for young kids. All of those characters were catered more towards younger children than the Attitude era.

Right, well that's middle school. Pro wrestling is still popular with middle schoolers. It's crude TV. Kids/white trash love anything with cussing and boobies. It's not a sustainable model though because to keep that kind of appeal, you have to keep pushing the envelope. They could either reel it in and get over on something other than cheap pops (most of the tude era midcard was cheap pops, a pornstar, a pimp, come on). Unless you'd rather watch a show where Sable gets gangbanged by the nation of domination then Stone Cold leads a band of Texans to lynch them, the model of pushing the envelope probably wasn't sustainable.

[Waylon Mercy]

I am really enjoying reading this thread. It reminds me a lot of where I was at back in the mid-to-late nineties. Looking back, it truly was a phenomenal time culturally, and specifically in the culture of professional wrestling. I never really thought of how the background of politics, music and popular culture affected what I was watching both on Nitro and Raw on a weekly basis. I could never really put my finger on what made Stone Cold Steve Austin so huge. Part of me was thinking at the time that I wasn't supposed to be cheering this redneck who stuck his middle finger up and disrespected authority. That wasn't really who I was at the time. I didn't like authority, but I still respected it. My hero, the guy I could identify most with was Bret "The Hitman" Hart. Worked hard, was a good role model, put on great matches night after night. When these two icons clashed at Wrestlemania 13, that was probably the turning point for me that something amazing was happening in the business. In one fell swoop, the hero came out of a winning effort the goat, while the disrespectful S.O.B. barely walked out on his own accord the hero. I had never seen anything like that before. Immediately after that, Bret Hart transformed himself into an edgier, less eager to please character who was out for respect. Fans started to boo him. I really liked what I saw from Bret during this era, and at the same time I was starting to cheer on a guy I truly hated at first - Stone Cold. On top of that, there was Shawn Michaels, the Sexy Boy who was pushing the boundaries of good taste. His various clashes with Bret, both personally and professionally drew me in even more. We all know the history, but for this brief period between 1996 and 1997, I was never more transfixed by the world of wrestling.

[Moneyinc]

Originally Posted by TWJC: The Beginning

Right, well that's middle school. Pro wrestling is still popular with middle schoolers. It's crude TV. Kids/white trash love anything with cussing and boobies. It's not a sustainable model though because to keep that kind of appeal, you have to keep pushing the envelope. They could either reel it in and get over on something other than cheap pops (most of the tude era midcard was cheap pops, a pornstar, a pimp, come on). Unless you'd rather watch a show where Sable gets gangbanged by the nation of domination then Stone Cold leads a band of Texans to lynch them, the model of pushing the envelope probably wasn't sustainable.

From what I've heard it was pretty popular in High School's at this time as well. But yea, I see what you are saying.

[The Fabulous Rougeau's]

The attitude era will always be special to me because I was in high school (97-01) during the whole thing. Things that stick out to me are the music. Rap was huge, pop was huge, metal was huge and even though alernative rock fell off some after grunge, the late 90's was still a great time for alternative rock. As many have pointed out this was also the golden age of trash talk show tv. Also you had two of the most foul, inappropriate cartoons with south park and family guy get there start.

But what I remember the most is these were the last days of what I would classify as an acceptable level of political incorectness within pop cultue. After Columbine and especially 9-11, America changed. May aspects ofeveryday life before these events are just not fund nowadays.