Originally Posted by
onthewall2983
I didn't care much for the Attitude era, a lot of it was too raunchy for my tastes. Or at least when it comes to pro wrestling at least. Call me sensitive, but I was worried (even as a teenager myself then) about how that kind of stuff (particularly the homophobic, sexist, racist and parts of it all) was affecting the behaviors of young children at the time. And the bottom line for me is that it was WWE stealing ECW's act wholesale. And it gave Vince Russo his legacy. That alone is unforgivable.
However, I can't deny it did produce a lot of high points in the company's history. Great matches, hot crowds and just really good television at times. Austin and Rock were absolutely the right people at the right time and deserved every bit of the spots they maintained during that time. The Austin/McMahon feud was a truly epic angle, and Rock always put asses in seats with promos and almost always delivered on that promise.
The benefit of hindsight has allowed me to see it in both lights, but I'm sad that WCW ended up being the major casualty of the Monday Night War. For all the mind-blowingly dumb decisions and money-marking that went on there, their role in what I consider to be the third golden age of wrestling cannot be over-emphasized. Nitro threw down the gauntlet and was the fly in the ointment WWE needed in the mid-90's to get competitive again. The Mexican and Japanese talent, the NWO, and Goldberg all heightened the company to a level that would probably be sustained to this day, if not for the aforementioned reasons for it's eventual demise.