What Did The Attitude Era Give Us Now?

I think I'm right in thinking that the general opinion is that the attitude era was pretty much the best time ever in wrestling or was at least better than now but was it that good of a platform for future stars?

You would think that those on the undercards in that period would be the next big stars but very few made it to the main event and few exist now in the company. Shamrock was hotly tipped to be a leading star as was D-Lo Brown and X-Pac. Goldust never capitalised on his success and Val Venis basically jobbed his whole career. The Outlaws were shit on their own and "Marvellous Marc" just faded away too. All of Kaentai (except Funaki but he's hardly main event) eventually left and Taka, one of the most talented cruisers ever became a comedy character. Impossible to say about Owen Hart but lets face it, he wasn't going anywhere fast with that gimmick and he had been there quite some time. Most of the tag teams like Too Hot, Disciples of the Apocalypse, Headbangers and The Godwins all disappeared.

And we can look at the main event level now.

On Raw we have Orton, Batista, Punk, Cena who are all relatively recent acquisitions. Jericho was brought in around 2000 so it's debatable whether he counts or not. That only leaves HBK who was injured for the majority of the period anyway.

Smackdown is more inclined to use older stars at main event level with Big Show, HHH, Edge and Jeff hardy of course, the ultimate products of the attitude years but four out of all them stars is not a lot from a supposedly "golden era". Big Show and HHH were main eventing then too so it's arguable that they were not young prospects. Trips was in his prime back then anyway so he should never have been considered a future star really. Undertaker was here long before the attitude but he's a dodgy exception to everything really.

Other post-attitude main eventer's include Angle, Benoit, Guerrero, Lesnar who were not part of "WWF attitude".

Just find it a bit strange how in this period that everyone loved we have so little of it remaining now. Does this account for it being shit now? Not concentrating on the future enough? Did Vince go all out to win the Monday Night Wars so much so that he forgot all about the future? It's all possible.

I don't think it's a case of Vince overlooking the future. I think he picks a superstar, and invests an extortionate amount of time and a push to one potential big name at a time, trying to find the next Rock or Austin.

Since Rocky buggered off, and Austin retired, Brock Lesnar was supposed to be the next huge star. That didn't work. Vince then looked at Cena, which worked to an extent (until Vince went waaay too far trying to push him), Bobby Lashley then got picked, and at the moment, Ken Kennedy was in line for some huge push, I'd suggest Vladimir Kozlov could be the next guy to get pushed (or buried by Trips, you decide).

The thing is, after the Monday Night Wars made WWE and WCW unmissable, nothing is going to match it. I don't think WWE is actually all that bad at the moment, compared to the crap we got in 2005/6.

To be fair they couldn't really account for The Rock pissin off to Hollywood, and with Austin retiring they lost the two biggest stars of that era.

But HHH was made during the attitued era and he is still around(sadly), and I deffo think Jericho counts since his debut was halfway through in 1999(2 days after my birthday ).

and lets not forget, its over 10yrs now since that era started, and 10yrs is a hell of a long time in the "rasslin binuz".

Great article. I didn't watch most of the Attitude Era but I do know that it is the biggest period professional wrestling has had in it's history. The live crowds were electric, most of the superstars were charismatic and half decent on the mic and it produced in my opinion, the greatest PPV of all time in Wrestlemania X Seven. However, I do agree with the fact that it hasn't produced many current main events stars in the sense that they were midcarders during the Attitude Era but have evolved into main event stars. People such as Jeff and Matt Hardy, Edge and Christian (although this could be argued that TNA gave him that platform to showcase his talents).

I do think this period is the best in a long time and I can see a lot of future main events stars being produced. CM Punk has already won his first world title in a few months, MVP looks like a future star as does Kennedy (if he sorts himself out), Ted DiBiase, Shelton
Benjamin etc.

bazz23-v2 ®™ wrote:

To be fair they couldn't really account for The Rock pissin off to Hollywood, and with Austin retiring they lost the two biggest stars of that era.

But HHH was made during the attitued era and he is still around(sadly), and I deffo think Jericho counts since his debut was halfway through in 1999(2 days after my birthday ).

and lets not forget, its over 10yrs now since that era started, and 10yrs is a hell of a long time in the "rasslin binuz".

Not really on about the big cheeses of the time. I'm on about the kiddies that were there and were always billed as being the next big things.

JR was always creamin' over the likes of Billy Gunn, X-Pac and D-Lo.

Discopants wrote:

Not really on about the big cheeses of the time. I'm on about the kiddies that were there and were always billed as being the next big things.

JR was always creamin' over the likes of Billy Gunn, X-Pac and D-Lo.

I'd chalk that up to some calculated optimism on JR's side. He couldn't call them First Fag Tag Champion of the Future, Porn Star Prospect and Perpetual Jobber, could he?
In my opinion it's only natural for wrestling announcers to act as if they were excited about the people in the ring. They are part of the product and therefore have to make everyone look good, even if it is as clear as daylight that Young Bland Wrestler X is not going to be a big star in the future.

Well, Jeff and Edge are now both main-eventers, and both were in the tag division during the Attitude era. Matt Hardy is being pushed up the card at the moment. JBL has main-evented too, since being a mid-carder during Attitude. Mark Henry has had sporadic pushes

Who else is still around? As Bazz said, it's been almost 10 years since the Attitude era, most of them are now in TNA. Val Venis is purely an enhancement guy, D'Lo's the same, Hardcore Holly is an absolute waste of a contract, I'm struggling to think of many more...