It was a mess. They’d lost the zeitgeist of the Attitufe Era as well as the innovation. To be fair, story wise they had written themselves into corners. How can you tip earlier angles that were so outlandish and extreme?
Early RA tried to do this to ill effect. Then the decision was made to go on the opposite direction - to let the fields go fallow so to speak. Ease way back on the absurdity and let desensitized fans forget. Put HHH in as your gatekeeper while you try to figure out what to do with the monopoly that you now had, and how to relaunch.
In many ways, the Ruthless Agression Era was an extended version of the 1996-1997 period. Start stop moves, things being thrown against the wall, and complete retrenchment from what came before. The end result though was a new, family friendly product that helped create the outstanding content rights deals of today, just like the 96-97 period served as a bridge between the New Generation period to the dominant Attitude Era.
