The attitude Era was nothing but a last ditch effort for the WWE to stay in business by a desperate business man that got sidetracked during the mid 90's with his own steroid trial. When he was done with the trial, the wrestling world had passed him by and he was a relic in his own business.
WCW was beating the WWE because they did it the right way. The did exactly what the WWE did to everyone else, raided their talent, got a better TV Deal, and gave the results away. It's the same shady business tactics that Vince used to dominate the business, and it came back to smack him right in the face. So what does Vince do. He recreates his own image. Instead of being the asshole business man that put how many territories out of business, he was the small, all American business man that was up against an evil multi-media conglomerate in Ted Turner and Time Warner. Now if you can be done with sniffing that bullshit, you may continue.
The WWE's problem was it's inability to make stars in the post Hogan era. Instead of caving in to the likes of Hogan, McMahon should have been the boss and said, Hogan, you're putting over Bret Hart, and that's final. Instead, Hogan puts over Yoko, which no one gives a damn about, and vacates the premises, succesfully handing the torch to no one, an dthe company left with a huge void up top.
No one cared about Bret or Shawn Michaels. It's the blunt, harsh truth that those fans need to realize, and with those two at the helm, the WWE nearly went under. WCW wasn't fairing much better, but they decided to get with the times, or do something fucking drastic. WCW turned Hogan heel, re-capturing the fan base that grew up watching the man. What was the WWE doing, nothing. They had a pretty boy as champion that no one could relate to, or no one cared about, your choice.
So the momentum of WCW continued to grow, while the WWE took a backseat to them. The attitude and rebellious nature of the NWO was growing by leaps and bounds, capturing that teenage audience that was doing the same exact thing in their own lives.onThen luck happened to stumble upon the WWE, a man named Steve Austin.
Austin had been gaining momentum after the Coronation speech at KotR 96, and Austin 3:16 was born. As the business grew thanks to Hogan and the N.W.O., more people would begin to flip over and watch WWE just to see how it was doing. Stone Cold was attracting his own fan base by simply acting like himself. 1997 became a great year for the WWE as their product got more edgy, but not over the top, and 1997 became a phenomenal year creative wise for both companies.
Then what happened, Stone Cold reached megastardom, Michaels got injured, and the main event level was virtually empty. When Austin won the belt at Mania, only he and Taker were the guys that held the title in the company, that's it, only two guys that were world champion in one company. So what does the WWE do, they decide, well Austin was good, lets have everyone be over the top, and it simply flood and over saturated the market, and turned 1998 into one of the most boring years for the WWE creatively.
Great feuds like the Harts vs. Insert name here were replaced by guys getting their pee pees chopped off, porn stars sleeping with people's wives, Drunk wrestlers driving zamboni's to the ring, a guy hunting his boss and making him pee his pants in the ring, the eventual feeding of one mans dog to the man, the dragging of a man's fathers casket at his funeral, the birth of a plastic hand, all of this stupid bullshit. Yeah, it worked, the WWE got their ratings, but guess what, it attracted a crowd of nothing but half witted dipshits that didn't give on flying fuck about the business. These were the same people that are now responsible with the over saturation of reality TV that we see flooded on our televisions today. The Jerry Springer crowd that only gave a damn about seeings someones tits because they wouldn't be able to do that in their own lives.
So WCW goes under because Vince Russo decides to do the same thing when he moves down south, except no one is buying that bullshit anymore. Russo unchecked essentially is the death nail of the business as we know it, placing titles on guys like David Arquette, and himself. So in a monopoly, you expect the WWE to have ridiculus ratings, absorbing the entire fan base of both companies, plus ECW, yet it didn't happen. Why, because those fans didn't give one shit about wrestling.
The ratings eventually fell back to what they were, pre-attitude. Why, because the WWE absolutely failed to make any of those fans wrestling fans that started watching. Why, because the WWE failed to do anything as far as creating quality wrestlers from that Era. Who became a star in the Attitude Era that lasted in the business, maybe one man Triple H. That's it. Edge debuted in that era, so he might be the only developmental guy that survived. It took the class of 2002 OVW to turn this business around, and at least lay the foundation for what we are seeing today.
