While I invite everyone to post their own answers to the title's question, I actually have my own theory. Here's a hint: It's NOT because it was edgier or because it had boobies.
Sure, wrestling was edgier during the Attitude Era. But so was 99% of pop culture at the time! Pop culture in general, at the time, was undergoing a "shock value for its own sake" and "anti-authority for its own sake" movement. Shows like Fear Factor, Jerry Springer, MTV's "Jackass." The list goes on and on. Even shows that had relatively wholesome content would still often have anti-social main stars, like Inquisition or The Weakest Link.
There were commercials for things like "Bubble Tape" (bubble gum in a tape-measure style container) or "squand" where the whole selling point of those commercials was that the grown-ups DON'T like it!
In the movie "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers," the villain Ivan Ooze tried to enslave the parents by giving his magic ooze to the kids. His selling point was "Take it home in boxes; take it home in cases! If you're parents try to stop ya, just throw it in their faces!" Hell, one of the kids even asked Ivan what they were supposed to do with the ooze, and Ivan didn't have an answer for that! But your parents wouldn't approve of you having it! What more do you need?!
So yes, wrestling was edgier during the time period that happens to be labeled "the Attitude Era." But that doesn't explain why it was at the top of the ratings charts every week. They had to do something different than everything else on TV at the time ... and everything else on TV was just as edgy as WWF was.
But you know what isn't a product of its time, but is in fact timeless? People love good stories. People look well-developed characters. People like those characters to have complex and relateable conflicts and to undergo character development.
And that's something the Attitude Era did in spades that everyone seems to gloss over. The Attitude Era was a time period where storytelling in wrestling was at the height of its quality. This is also the time period when wrestling itself was at the height of its popularity.
Think I'm looking too deep into this? Well, to prove that the storytelling was so good, I'm going to list some wrestlers from that time period. However, I'm not going to tell you their names or any of the moves they did in their matches. Instead, I'm going to focus exclusively on their personalities and backstories. Let's see how many of these Attitude Era wrestlers you instantly recognize.
- The leader of a satanic cult who would often hand other wrestlers to his crucifix and therefore brainwash them into joining his cult.
- A masked man who believed he suffered severe burns as a child, and wore a mask to hide those burns. He entered the WWF in the hopes of avenging his older brother, who he blamed for starting said fire.
- A part-time porn star who would often flirt with the women in the audience before his matches. He would enter the ring appearing to wear nothing but a towel, but much to the censors' gratitude, he would disrobe to reveal his wrestling trunks underneath.
- A pimp who wold offer the services of his prostitutes to his opponents in exchange for forfeiting their matches against him.
- A pair of reformed satan-worshippers who would offer to protect anyone on the roster who paid their fee.
- A pair of Japanese wrestlers who were a parody of poorly-dubbed Japanese monster movies. Their promos would consist of them moving their lips around randomly while a pre-recorded promo would play over the sound system.
- A guy who always spoke in third person who, at one point, complained to Vince McMahon that the $100,000 bonus he was supposed to receive amounted to a mere five new shirts for him.
So as you can see from these examples, the Attitude Era was chalk full of colorful characters with fully fleshed-out, instantly recognizable personalities, despite all of them having to be "edgey" in one capacity or another due to the pop culture demands of the time.
Now compare that to a guy who never really got himself over during the Attitude Era: Dan "the Beast" Severn. Listen to this blog about why that guy never really got over with the fans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRCvHpFNshI
Compare that to the wrestlers of today. If I told you I was thinking of a moder-day wrestler, and I said his personality was "a triumphant babyface who doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'quit' and will fight on despite impossible odds," then who am I talking about? John Cena, Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan, or AJ Styles?
So my personal theory about why the Attitude Era is so fondly remembered by fans isn't the edginess ... it was the attitude itself! Aka the personality that was injected into the wrestlers!
Your thoughts?
Sure, wrestling was edgier during the Attitude Era. But so was 99% of pop culture at the time! Pop culture in general, at the time, was undergoing a "shock value for its own sake" and "anti-authority for its own sake" movement. Shows like Fear Factor, Jerry Springer, MTV's "Jackass." The list goes on and on. Even shows that had relatively wholesome content would still often have anti-social main stars, like Inquisition or The Weakest Link.
There were commercials for things like "Bubble Tape" (bubble gum in a tape-measure style container) or "squand" where the whole selling point of those commercials was that the grown-ups DON'T like it!
In the movie "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers," the villain Ivan Ooze tried to enslave the parents by giving his magic ooze to the kids. His selling point was "Take it home in boxes; take it home in cases! If you're parents try to stop ya, just throw it in their faces!" Hell, one of the kids even asked Ivan what they were supposed to do with the ooze, and Ivan didn't have an answer for that! But your parents wouldn't approve of you having it! What more do you need?!
So yes, wrestling was edgier during the time period that happens to be labeled "the Attitude Era." But that doesn't explain why it was at the top of the ratings charts every week. They had to do something different than everything else on TV at the time ... and everything else on TV was just as edgy as WWF was.
But you know what isn't a product of its time, but is in fact timeless? People love good stories. People look well-developed characters. People like those characters to have complex and relateable conflicts and to undergo character development.
And that's something the Attitude Era did in spades that everyone seems to gloss over. The Attitude Era was a time period where storytelling in wrestling was at the height of its quality. This is also the time period when wrestling itself was at the height of its popularity.
Think I'm looking too deep into this? Well, to prove that the storytelling was so good, I'm going to list some wrestlers from that time period. However, I'm not going to tell you their names or any of the moves they did in their matches. Instead, I'm going to focus exclusively on their personalities and backstories. Let's see how many of these Attitude Era wrestlers you instantly recognize.
- The leader of a satanic cult who would often hand other wrestlers to his crucifix and therefore brainwash them into joining his cult.
- A masked man who believed he suffered severe burns as a child, and wore a mask to hide those burns. He entered the WWF in the hopes of avenging his older brother, who he blamed for starting said fire.
- A part-time porn star who would often flirt with the women in the audience before his matches. He would enter the ring appearing to wear nothing but a towel, but much to the censors' gratitude, he would disrobe to reveal his wrestling trunks underneath.
- A pimp who wold offer the services of his prostitutes to his opponents in exchange for forfeiting their matches against him.
- A pair of reformed satan-worshippers who would offer to protect anyone on the roster who paid their fee.
- A pair of Japanese wrestlers who were a parody of poorly-dubbed Japanese monster movies. Their promos would consist of them moving their lips around randomly while a pre-recorded promo would play over the sound system.
- A guy who always spoke in third person who, at one point, complained to Vince McMahon that the $100,000 bonus he was supposed to receive amounted to a mere five new shirts for him.
So as you can see from these examples, the Attitude Era was chalk full of colorful characters with fully fleshed-out, instantly recognizable personalities, despite all of them having to be "edgey" in one capacity or another due to the pop culture demands of the time.
Now compare that to a guy who never really got himself over during the Attitude Era: Dan "the Beast" Severn. Listen to this blog about why that guy never really got over with the fans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRCvHpFNshI
Compare that to the wrestlers of today. If I told you I was thinking of a moder-day wrestler, and I said his personality was "a triumphant babyface who doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'quit' and will fight on despite impossible odds," then who am I talking about? John Cena, Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan, or AJ Styles?
So my personal theory about why the Attitude Era is so fondly remembered by fans isn't the edginess ... it was the attitude itself! Aka the personality that was injected into the wrestlers!
Your thoughts?