Favourite WWE Year

[freaky107]

There have been many great moments in WWE over the years. From The 1st Wrestlemania to the infamous Montreal Screwjob, From the iconic hell in a cell match between 'taker and Mick Foley to the 1st money in the bank ladder match. There have been countless stars, from Hogan to HBK to Randy Orton. Yes, when it comes to great moments, WWE has had plenty, but i just have to ask;

What is your favourite year in WWE history and why?

This can range as far back as you want, or it could even be this year (which i highly doubt anyone will choose, but you never know). Remember to include reasons for this choice, including your favourite match and promo from this year that make it iconic to you and when you started to watch WWE.

 

[NtraintoBrooklyn]

without a doubt 1998-1999 excluding** owens death
dx
austin vs mcmahon
austin vs the rock
ministry of darkness
the corporation
wwf was at its best!
coming in at second has to be 2001 with the invasion i really enjoyed that!

 

[ccotreau1]

Feud-wise, i would have to say 2002-2003 HHH vs HBK/Nash was one of my favorites (outside the rock/stone cold steve austin and SCSA vs Mr McMahon where they both weren't really in 1 year)

Promo-wise, i would have to say 1990/Royal Rumble 1991 when Sgt Slaughter was going after the "WWF" title when Warrior held the title, Slaughter's character made me interested in wrestling at first.

Overall, I would have to say 1996 was the best year, you had the start of the Attitude era, the rises of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, HHH etc

 

[MoxViolence]

i agree wit brooklyn on this one. 98-99 was the absolute best year of wwe television i've watched. austin and mcmahon..classic. austin and the rock...classic. the ministy was great. and when the ministy joined with the corporation was great too. god bless the writers during this era.

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

My favorite year would be 2004 with 2002 a close second. Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero winning their first titles was a great start. Benoit and Guerrero were very underrated as champions as they put on great match after great match. 2004 was also the year of Evolution when they were at their best and then Orton winning the title and getting kicked out of the group.

2004 was also the beginning of JBL who was one of the best heels this decade. Had the longest world title in Smackdown history with good matches against Undertaker, Booker T, and Guerrero. John Cena started picking up steam and Batista turning on HHH was in the works.

 

[Midnite Express 2009]

I'd have to agree with a couple of the other posts and say 1998. I'd pick '98 over '99 because in 1999, you basically had the (wait for it)...Downhill begin of the aittude era. Now, I know that in '99 you had the debuts of both Big Show & Jericho, as well as the continuing McMahon/Austin feud, the classic I Quit match at the Royal Rumble, and the whole Corporate Ministry thing (I will forever remember McMahon saying "It was me Austin! It was me all along." And Jim Ross infamously saying "awe, son of a bitch!") but what makes '98 special is the fact that it was Austin's 1st title run, the very next night on Raw was probably one of the top 5 Raws ever with the new DX forming, Austin and McMahon getting into it and also in '98, stars like Rock, Shamrock, Kane and a few others really stepped it up. Plus, '98 had that great HITC match (which for a time was being shoved down everyone's throat). And finally, in '98, the WWE knew their asses were being smoked weekly and had to pull out all stops, but '99, they pretty much knew they had WCW right where they wanted them so they didn't try so hard to beat WCW, they just wanted to give a big fuck you to everyone else. So, to me, '98 was THE greatest year of all-time in the history of the WWF/E. I mean, go back and look at the pay-per-views, the Raw matches, promos, stars and champions and while you may find better champs at different stages and years, you'd never find any more worthy of the excitement they brought week-in and week-out.

 

[TheLittleOne]

1990 is my fav year. it included many house show matches with HULK vs MrPerfect that were great, some great snme, warrior, macho, hulk all over tv like regis, arsenio, NY parades soemthing u just dont see n e more. a tour of japan which saw bret vs tigermask..and HULK's best match LOD vs Hulk&Jumbotsruta . WM6 which was epic. and my all time fav ppv Survivor Series .. i think being 7 years old helped, as many of you understand.

btw u can see the hulk and bret matches from that japan tour on wweclassics.com

anyone else remember 1990 like i did!!?

 

[rockmysock01]

Yeah i agree with Midnite Express..'98 was the best year. Followed closely by '97.

1998 was the payoff for what had been building for the past 18 months or so, since Austins 3:16 speech at KOTR '96. Vince Russo was on fire! He is so underrated for what he did during this time.
In '98 you had Taker vs Kane in their great feud, including the amazing inferno match.
Taker vs Mankind in that incredible Hell in the Cell.
Austin vs Tyson! Tyson joining DX..Austin winning his 1st Championship at Wrestlemania..Austin vs Kane at KOTR, then the even better rematch the next night on raw..Austin vs McMahon,of course..The Rock winning his 1st Championship at Survivor series. The list goes on and on..

I feel sorry for people who have started watching wrestling post-attitude era. They missed out on all the fun. Its just hard to put into words how exciting it was to tune in every week to see what Austin or DX was gonna do next.
The last time i was genuinely excited about something happening in wrestling, was when the NWO came to the WWE in 2002..and we all know what a fizzer that turned out to be.
Pretty much sums up the WWE for the past 7 years, unfortunately

 

[Chill]

My favourite WWE year was 2001 for a few reasons. First, I thought they had a great start on PPV with the Royal Rumble (which coincidentally is my favourite Rumble of all time)...not only was the rumble match itself great but the rest of the card also featured some classic matches like Jericho and Benoit in the ladder match and Angle v HHH.

Also, 2001 was the year of Wrestlemania 17 which is my favourite 'Mania as well...I just remember the card being off the hook with matches like Angle/Benoit, a fun Hardcore Triple threat, Taker/HHH and of course the main event which featured Austin and the Rock where Austin turned heel.

Finally, 2001 saw the Invasion Angle which I liked, despite most people holding the view that it was poorly handled. However, at that time I had been a big fan of the original WCW (despite it going drastically downhill at the end) and so when WCW and ECW teamed up, naturally, I loved it. Not to mention, by the time Suvivour Series '01 rolled about, I was 11 years old and needless to say the suspence was unbelievable as I really thought the WWE was going to crumble before my very eyes! Ah, 2001 was a great year, yes indeed!

 

[proweeks]

1997 or 1998

both of these years to me are impossible to pick by, you had every star of the Attitude era at the top of there game and every story line from the attitude era was the best in these two years

of course the attitude era went on up until the end of 2001, but I pick these years because in my opinion these are the only two years when WWE, WCW and ECW were all at the top of there game.At the close of 1998 both WCW and ECW both began to go to crap and before 1997 the WWE was good but the attitude era didnt truly begin until 1997(yes some believe it began in mid '96 when Austin started to break out but nobody but him had the attitude until '97.

maybe if I absolutely had to pick I'd say '97 because WCW did start to go downhill a bit in '98, but '98 was still a great year for them compared to 1999 or 2000

 

["Cool Guy" Jensen]

I would have to say my favorite year in WWE would have to be 2001. I wasn't really a fan of WWE at the time, but it was such an amazing year. The Invasion Angle was great, Survivor Series 2001 was one of the best ppvs, Wrestlemania X-7 was arguably the best Wrestlemania yet, The 2001 Royal Rumble was great when Kane got 11 eliminations, the list is endless. 2001 was the last full year of WWF, and from what I've heard and seen, 2001 was the greatest year in WWE.

 

[Kenny Powers]

1997-1998 were great years for WWE as far as the attitude era. My personal favorite would be that along with 2001-2002 when WWE bought out WCW. The story lines were amazing with Vince competing with Shane. We had Austin and The Rock going at it, with tons of new talent coming in. The Invasion Angle was great when it started out.

It was amazing to see all that WCW and ECW talent inside a WWE ring. Not to mention, Ric Flair's return to WWE and Eric Bischoff becoming General Manager of Raw. I also can't forget of the NWO Invasion where Hogan, Hall, and Nash came to WWE to poison it. I never thought we would see Hogan or even the NWO in the WWE.

 

[The Rob]

2003. It was the first full year I had watched WWE programming on a regular basis (every week, without fail) and some of the feuds completely captivated me. Brock Lesner/Kurt Angle was just amazing and I just had to tune in every week to see what happened next. I was absolutely pissed when Angle cheated his way out of his WWE Championship match again Lesnar on SmackDown.

Shawn Michaels/Chris Jericho was probably the main reason why I became a Shawn Michaels fan. It almost taught me about Shawn's basic past, about how he was one of the very best back in the mid-90's. And that was the first really, really good wrestling match I ever watched and even then I understood that this was a quality match.

Triple H/Kevin Nash introduced me to Hell in a Cell, which since then has become one of my favourite match types. Plus again, it taught me more about the past 10 years in the WWE, about their friendship etc etc. Their HIAC match was the first really bloody match I ever watched.

And Undertaker/McMahon absolutely amazed me out to be honest. It was the first time I had ever seen Taker's really dark side and the whole buried alive concept really interested me.

There have been better years before and since then, but for me personally, 2003 was the year that really shaped me into the wrestling fan I am today.

 

[Baximus]

I'm shocked that I'm the first to post this, but there has never been a better build up to Wrestlemania than that of Wrestlemania 2000.

Starting when Stone Cold went out at Survivor Series, you had HHH establish the McMahon-Helmsley Faction which pretty much put HHH in charge and made him the best heel I've ever seen.

He has this sick feud with Cactus Jack through the Royal Rumble while the Rock is going after Big Show. Then Rock wins the controversial Rumble and No Mercy rolls around.

Rock v. Show for the #1 contender spot at WM2000 and HHH v. Cactus Jack in the Career v. Title Hell in a Cell Match where Foley was backdropped through the damn ring from the top of the Cell. On top of that Shane screwed the Rock over giving Show the title shot.

The next few weeks were chaos with Rock trying to get back his title shot. He puts his career on the line in a handicap match against Show and HHH and Vinny Mac comes back and counts the pinfall for the Rock to win his shot into the Main Event, making it a 3 way.

Then, there's a huge Raw in Chicago and Vince coerces Trips into having the WM2000 Main Event that night and its a shitshow and HHH holds on late after a ton of craziness. Just as Trips thinks its over, Linda comes out and puts Foley into the Main Event to give us the McMahon in every corner match.

We all remember that Vince screwed Rocky over there and that led to the best out of 3 falls match at Backlash where Stone Cold came out and cleaned house for Rocky to finally take the belt from HHH.

Their feud just kept going into the next month's Iron Man Match with HBK at the guest ref and the Undertaker returning and chokeslamming HHH gave him the disqualification win and thus the tiebreaking belt win.

That's just a sick run of action from 99-00 after the awesomeness of 98 and 99.

On top of that, you had the 24 hour defending on the hardcore belt, Angle, Jericho, X-Pac and Benoit on the mid-card and a great tag division that featured Edge and Christian, the Hardy Boyz, the Dudleys, Too Cool and the New Age Outlaws.

This all happened without HBK, Austin or Taker and look at the superstars that just owned the card! Without a shadow of a doubt my absolute favorite time in wrestling.

We're so far from that glory it makes me sad. I didn't even touch on how awesome ECW used to be and the fact that WCW was still decent at the time.


Bring Back the Great One and start it up again!

 

[Poop Master Flex]

My favorite year has to be 1997 for a number of reasons (I know that WCW was kicking WWE's ass at the time but IMO they shouldn't of been). This was the year bret had his huge heel turn, which turned into the US vs. Canada storyline (which I was a huge fan of). They had one of my all time favorite PPVs in Canadian Stampede (which was my first live event), Stone Cold becoming a fan favorite, the debut of Kane and his storyline with taker, the formation of DX, and the Montreal Screwjob (which really helped set up the Mr. McMahon character, who was a great heel). They also had one of my all time favorite matches with Bret Hart vs. Stone Cold at WM13. There are a few of the reasons why that was my favorite year.

 

[school-of-hard-knocks]

I have to go with 2001. Royal Rumble was great with Kane looking like a monster and Austin managing to eliminate him with a chair in the end. Triple H and Stone cold did some great work feuding one another. WM 17 was a great event top to bottom, Kurt Angle Vs Chris Benoit, Hardcore Triple Threat, Undertaker Vs HHH, TLC, Stone Cold Vs The Rock...what more can you want? The Invasion angle was botched a bit but it was still very exciting to watch for the first couple of months. Austin's heel turn... Jericho winning the title... There were just so many memorable moments that year.

 

[The Brain]

I actually started a thread on this topic a few weeks ago. Here's my post from then.

I think my favorite year was 2000. Everything seemed so fresh that year. Take a look at all the new guys that came in toward the end of 99 and beginning of 2000. We had Jericho, Angle, Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Saturn, Tazz, The Dudleys, Rikishi, etc. Triple H and The Rock took their game to a new level. Undertaker reinvented himself as the American Badass. Edge and Christian and The Hardys became big time players. And all this without Austin for most of the year. One event that stands out is Fully Loaded. Here we had three main eventers, Rock, Triple H, and Taker, against Benoit, Jericho, and Angle respectively. Like I said it was just so fresh.

Also 2000 was hilarious. Angle was priceless. Edge and Christian were brilliant with their new characters. Rock was as funny as ever. Foley shined in his new role as commissioner. Every week the comedy was just as good, if not better than the action. Also Stephanie McMahon was ridiculously hot that year. Sorry I had to throw that in there.

I should also mention that 1999 was my least favorite year. I realize I’m probably the minority in that opinion. Everything about the over the top attitude storylines had grown old to me. All these fresh characters came in at the perfect time. It was a great turn around for the company from a creative standpoint. I’m noticing that things started to turn for the better as soon as Russo left. Coincidence?

My honorable mention would be 1989. Seems strange that my two favorite years are eleven years apart. 1989 had a stacked roster with some good feuds, matches, and storylines.

 

[iamcountrymusic]

i really loved the years Bischoff was GM.
Stephanie/HLA, Billy and Chuck being gay, Katie Vick and he introduced the Elimination Chamber.
Those days had better main events like with WCW wrestlers (Booker T, Kevin Nash, Goldberg etc). It wasn't just Cena, Orton and Triple H every main event. They had a bunch of guys going for the title.

To this day, i am still really gay for Evolution.

 

[byrnside]

Wow. Decisions, decisions. Now, I haven't read anyone elses choices because I don't want to be jaded. But, I think the obvious choice for me here is 1998.

Bret had just been screwed, the nWo was huge and about to implode, and possibly bring the entire ship down with it, and the WWF was ready for a clean slate. And they got it, in 1998, the dawn of the Attitude Era.

But in 1998, you had the Royal Rumble that Stone Cold won, and Kane burned the Undertaker alive in the casket match. At Wrestlemania, Stone Cold won the WWF title against HBK in a classic match that had HBK shelved for almost 5 years. DX was just getting started when HBK left, when Triple H brought X-Pac back in, and added the Outlaws. The war on WCW was waged by Triple H and DX. "Suck it!" Became more common in a wrestling ring, than a wrist lock. Vince McMahon became the most hated heel in wrestling's history, that fueled Stone Cold and basically won the ratings war for the WWF. We saw the Rock come into his own, and Mankind stepped up into the main event status. Of course, the Corporation, probably one of the top 5 stables in wrestling history, came to be in '98. The Undertaker threw Foley off the Hell in a Cell in '98, beginning the Hardcore era of the WWF. The Survivor Series that year was as good of a follow-up from the previous year as anyone could've hoped for with the World title tournament where the Rock shocked the entire world and joined the Corporation, and Vince turned on Foley.

 

[thetoko]

1999. WWF was turning around, they had a great mix of promos and wrestling. Stone cold, the rock, kane, mick foley, HHH. It had everything anyone could hope for at the time while mid way through the year,the NWO was already becoming stale.