Attitude Era / Ruthless Agression Era
What's your personal favorite between the two? Best memories?
Maybe put them head to head:
Roster
Storylines
Match Quality
Or any other factor you want to point.
For me, although AE had HUGE stars, the RA era had the the best roster since we had stars from WWF, WCW and ECW and the better Match Quality. Storyline wise I think it's a clear win to the Attitude Era.
Maybe put them head to head:
Roster
Storylines
Match Quality
Or any other factor you want to point.
For me, although AE had HUGE stars, the RA era had the the best roster since we had stars from WWF, WCW and ECW and the better Match Quality. Storyline wise I think it's a clear win to the Attitude Era.
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Roster was far from stacked once hogan, nwo, austin and rock dropped out in 2002.
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But you still had the stars those guys made like Angle, HHH, Brock, Y2J, Eddie, Benoit. Plus you still had established stars like Undertaker and Kane full time. They were able to put on a good product for several years until the Cena cancer spread in 2005/2006 and led to the terminal decline of quality.
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Those guys were huge stars but look at the upper midcarders they had.. booker, rvd, jericho, kane etc.. the ratings dropped because of the way they were booked, but the potential was there.
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Yes and the upper midcard scene was so stacked they had to split the brands... one of my main grips about the AE is actually the midcard and upper midcard scenes.
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Those guys you mention were not difference makers. Booker/Jericho were entertaining sure but having them mainevent houseshow circuit was asking far too much
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Yup, with so many quality guys on top, the brand split made a lot of sense and let new guys shine...until Cena squashed them all.
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Yeah. I guess I give HHH some credit because he was a good heel in the AE and went back and forth enough with the top faces. But after they were gone, he buried the potential new guys instead of elevating them. Cena never helped anyone. RVD had the potential to be the man and stupidly smoked himself out of it in 2006 so that was not HHH. Brock definitely should have been the man but he left. Booker T's best days were behind him by the time he got to WWE but could have had a few years on top so I definitely agree HHH buried him. No excuse for HHH beating him at WM XX.
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Really? In 2003 a barely mobile Scott Steiner was put in main program. Goldberg was brought in and immediately mainevented. Broken down Nash mainevented. Hogan and Piper was top program in 2003, 20 years after it peaked.
JBL got year long title run on SD, big show pushed again as his opponent for months. Taker was feuding with Heidenreich and HHH with Eugene on major ppvs in 2004.
If quality was so good why did WWE lose 2/3rd of their paying audience, 1/2 their tv watching watching and their revenue saw fall off of $90 million a year from 2000 to 2004.
People can be critical of Cena but his push saw attendance, viewership and revenue rise when it looked like terminal decline had set in late 2004 when they couldn't get people to buy tickets to ppvs (taboo Tuesday 2004 lowest attended ppv ever with 3,000 in building setup for 13,000).
You can criticise Cena but he was the tide that lifted all boats. Edge working with Cena got him hot. Orton working with Cena got him hot. HHH working with Cena reignited him. RVD became world champion working with Cena.
2003-04 period could only dream of 5+ million watching raw each week, roughly 7,000 paid at live events, somebody selling more merch in a year than Hogan or rock at their peaks, $500+ million in annual revenue and a roster with guys on top as hot as Cena, Orton, edge, Jeff hardy, Mysterio, Batista as we saw in 2008-09
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Of course there were a ton of horrible storylines in every era, including the ones you mentioned. Hogan and Vince in 2003 plus Piper was cringe, But Hogan and Rock in 2002 was one of the greatest audience reactions of all time, so I do not blame them for at least trying something else with him. I mean, Hogan and HBK in 2005 at least had a great build, but sadly ended in a poor match. The HBK Montreal promo still holds up as one of the best ever.
Losing Austin AND The Rock so close together of course hurt business a lot. More hardcore fans appreciated the top guys I mentioned, but some of the casuals left. In hindsight maybe they should have built up those guys more but no one expected BOTH their top guys to leave at the same time. It created a vacuum that no one guy could fill.
I can at least understand why some people liked Cena from 2004-2006, though I never did. But after that? No way. He should have been repackaged after he lost to RVD at One Night Stand 2006. That audience reaction was one of the best ever, and Vince ignored it.
People can criticize Hogan for holding people down in the 80's, but he actually did transform the business and elevate everyone. Cena did not raise all the boats, he capsized and drowned them. During the vast majority of his run on top, he was never well received. And he is the most responsible for the state WWE is in today. More than anything, he represents mediocrity. Every storyline he was in would have been better if a better guy was in it. Substitute Kurt Angle or Brock in every storyline you mentioned and it instantly gets 100% better. Imagine how much better 2008-2009 would have been without Cena. It is pretty easy to.
What's the point of being VIP when there's no P's to see me being VI?
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To me it was always Roster/Storylines/Segments to the Attitude Era and Match Quality to the Ruthless Aggression Era.
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Brand split was a disaster pre Batista and cena getting pushed in 2005. What guys got to shine, takers friend JBL, HHH, Orton for like 2 weeks.
That's a houseshow in late 2002, no way anbody can tell me that's stacked starpower wise http://web.archive.org/web/20030311...ng.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=6311
Business was falling off at a fast rate with Austin and rock there. They were both on show in Dallas raw in June 2002 which drew 7-8k in a venue which would have been 13-14k sellout instantly pre Wrestlemania 17. Mania 19 as good as it was was a disaster on ppv even with Rock and Austin 3
He was always getting booed by rabid ecw fans. His performance that night working the crowd into frenzy was fantastic.
WWE were never repackaging a guy who was bringing tons of new fans into WWE (mostly kids and women) outselling rest of roster combined in merch and main person responsible for seeing increase in attendance first time in years. Hardcore adult males could boo him but they weren't going to change especially after Austins disastrous heel turns in 2001.
He wasn't well received by vocal hardcore males aged 20-39. He was over huge with everyone else. No he didn't raise business like Hogan did but he kept business ticking over during a very rough period for company ie rise of UFC, Benoit murder suicide, biggest economic downturn since 1930s.
The state WWE are in today, you mean the one generating nearly a billion dollars annually, $100m in profits, thriving developmental program, a network. It's a far cry from 2003 all right.
Without Cena I will say WWE would have struggled to be viable entity actually given the three main things I mentioned happening between 2006-09 on top of fact business had already fallen off massively between 2000-04.
With Cena they were able to turn family friendly and build around him once UFC got nuclear hot. Many experts were predicting death of WWE in 2006-07 because fake WWE has no counter against real sports entertainment. With wwe targeting new demo it allowed it to make money at a time UFC targeted the 18-39 male demo including wrestling fans of that type.
How exactly does wwe improve business without Cena post 2004? As stated he was outselling everyone even guys who were pushed in attitude era like HHH, taker, angle in merch as a midcard guy on SD in 2004 http://web.archive.org/web/20040907034930/http://shopzone.wwe.com/index.asp
Remove him and the fans he brought in and wwe are in trouble. I mean they were in trouble big time by late 2004 as it was. By 2004 average wwe paid attendance was 3,900 lowest it's been since 1995. That was before UFC getting hot or economic downturn too
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No one is going to argue with you there. Star power declined because both Austin AND Rock left at the same time like I mentioned previously.
If by “there” you mean both were not there for most of the year then sure. SCSA was not there for over half the year. Rock worked a few of the PPVs and was not at TV every week. If both were actually advertised and had worked the weeks and months leading up to that show, it likely would have sold out. Mania XIX was great, but everyone knew Rock had already left and would be leaving again. SCSA had walked out and no one knew what to expect and guess what, he stopped wrestling right after that.
They were in a frenzy before he even came out. They threw his shirt back at him every time. Literally no one wanted anything to do with him except see him lose.
Well, look at The Rock. They treated him like they did Cena when he started out. An awesome heel run changed that so when he became face again he was huge. Now, I would never compare The Rock and Cena in terms of charisma or entertainment, but they could have at least tried something like that. The Austin turn failed because no one wanted to see that at the time. It COULD have worked with the right writing at the right time.
Right, like I said, he is the definition of mediocrity. There were several guys they could have given that push to and it would have been better for business.
Not in terms of quality. I am not sure anyone could argue that. Their ratings have been steadily declining for years. Vince is terrible at creative but he is one of the best promoters and salespeople of all time. He was able to get multiple networks to bid for his product and won huge. Of course, Cena was not a big part of what he was selling in this current TV deal.
Like I said, there were several people that would have done better in that position. I know that is speculation, but so is your argument that they would have done worse without him.
They were able to turn family friendly and turn off a large part of their fanbase and decrease the quality of their show to what it is today where they realize they have to change again. In the world of DVRs I can watch UFC, WWE, and AEW. There is a huge overlap in fanbase, but not for a kid’s show.
How could they have improved without Cena back then? Invest in Angle, Orton, Batista, Eddie, Edge, Brock, RVD, Booker T, Jericho, Benoit, hell even Lashley could have been shot to the moon with a good mouthpiece back then. Cena was trash and everyone who invested in building WWE up in the attitude era knew it.
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Easily Attitude Era. I tuned in every week from 97 through to summer 2001. 7 years ago I rewatched it all again and it still lives up to the memories. I get bored trying to watch ruthless agression Era. It had some memorable moments but it doesn't reach the heights of the attitude Era.
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Tbh I prefer brawlfests over flippyfests.
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I disagree 100%. Edge and Cena BOTH made that storyline as good as it was. Take one of them out and it would not have the same impact.
Cena didn’t do much in 2008. He won the Rumble, he lost at WrestleMania, lost again at Backlash, he started a feud with JBL where he even curtain jerked Judgment Day 2008, He lost at Night of Champions, he lost at Great American Bash, lost again at SummerSlam, and got injured. He came back and won the World Heavyweight Title from Jericho at Survivor Series But by then the year was pretty much over.
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