Professional Wrestling

[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.

[BlueCalx]

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.

Couldn't agree more. I remember the Attitude era fondly, but it produced, on average, more misses than hits, and it gave rise to a lot of awful programming decisions, chief among them allowing the whole McMahon family to take up hours and hours of precious screen time. I haven't watched WWE product in years, so I have no idea if they've become better about that or not, but Vince's cheap suits, his kiss-my-ass club, and his charisma black hole of a son were all big factors in my decision to tune out. The racism, sexism, and homophobia were even bigger turnoffs in retrospect, but not quite as apparent to me when I was twelve years old.

Do you remember watching WCW in its last ten months or so, when it was apparent that they'd lost the plot completely? Terrible, fascinating stuff. I can't believe, in retrospect, that some of that was even allowed on the air. Some day, some scholar is going to get access to all those tapes and write a mind-bending media studies thesis.

[onthewall2983]

Do you remember watching WCW in its last ten months or so, when it was apparent that they'd lost the plot completely? Terrible, fascinating stuff. I can't believe, in retrospect, that some of that was even allowed on the air. Some day, some scholar is going to get access to all those tapes and write a mind-bending media studies thesis.

I remember going to a Nitro taping in January 2001, a few months before it closed. Someone in the stands called Flair a faggot. I can't help but think the kind of Hell that person would have unleashed if they said it in Greensboro in the 80's. The only other thing memorable about that show was actually leaving it. We left during a match with Haku. Fast-forward to that Sunday, and he comes in late in that year's Royal Rumble match. Nothing of big note, but we thought it was quite funny.

The Turner networks were fully taken over by AOL Time Warner, and the big reason why they got away with running so much shoddy programming is that the company was probably not as enthusiastic about taking on a wrestling company. Rather than pulling the plug, they just let it fail on it's own accord until they had enough and sold everything off. And Ted Turner, who saved nearly everybody's jobs at Jim Crockett Promotions by buying them out, was already out the door himself.