How did they do it in the Attitude Era...?

I don't wanna be that guy, but it's basically because the writers are either A) lazy B) morons or C) lazy morons.

There's a few factors I'd cite, one of which being a complacent fan base; who has no desire to see WWE go above and beyond with any of their characters.

I disagree with each division being given time to build feuds while there was only the one show. Wasnt Heat around before smackdown? I dont think there was ever only one show like Raw, there was always Metal, Jakked or something for highlights and low key matches. The roster is pretty big nowadays but the talent isnt there in abundance like you think.

Most of them guys are hopless because the matches are rehearsed, the wrestlers are told what to do and when to perform the moves prior to the match, rather than call it in the ring which allows for a much more fluent match. Writers arent a bad thing, i certainly dont think they are lazy because Vince or Steph wouldnt stand for lazy writers and they would soon begiven their marching orders. If you're a bit inept and cant come up with your own stuff then yea a writer might help but ive always believed that no one knows you better than you, so all your character development should come from you and you only. There are also too many people on the writing staff/creative.

Apparently back in the day you had a small group that came up with ideas, filtered them through Vince and he gave the go ahead, now it seems they have a entire room filled with writers etc all picking each others brains. You gotta change with the times, back in the attitude era or the 80s, there still wasnt the vast amount of tv shows that WWE now are in competition with...now they are competing with the Walking dead, True Blood and all that stuff that has society hooked.

I think that people need to remember that the Attitude Era is the exception, not the rule. WWE is probably in its natural place with Raw getting 3.0-4.0 ratings. A lot of things came together for the AE to work, and its unlikely that that level of wrestling success will be seen again.

I think that, because the edgy product hadn't really been done before to a mainstream audiance, it was a lot easier to come up with new and interesting things to do. Now its harder because a lot of fans saw PG/family-friendly entertainment in their lifetimes before so its harder to do new stuff without the audience getting bored of repetition.

Exactly.

When someone cut a promo, it built towards a fued, not to promote hashtags on twitter, or make videos for tout.

Announcers talked about the fued and the match going on in the ring, not taking away from it.

Wrestlers themselves wanted to push the limits because of the competition at WCW.

And finally, Vince wanted to win and I am assuming that the writing team was under immense pressure to come up with fresh stories and the bookers choose what made sense.

End of Rant.....


And it's my 5,000 post, only took eleven years lol.

Isn't that a eye opener then for the WWE that maybe John Cena isn't 'THE' guy anymore, and probably never really was for the most part. He was just rammed down our throats weekly on TV and on PPVs.

There were still big shows back in the late 90's too. It's not like the competition wasn't there then, but is now.

theres some simple answers here.

first is Bonnie Hammer from USA network.she taught Vince how to make a show tick over by delivering "bullet point high segments" as she calls them & to update from the 80s style of televisual delivery........this was never more evident than in AE.USA sent her in when Vince was taking a hammering in 96.

secondly......during the Attitude Era Vince was in competition with WCW and was obsessing about making EVERY facet of his show good......thats why he got ninterested in his midcard and tag titles again......he couldnt afford for them to be crap.Vince high points have always came when he had GENUINE opposition.his national expansion,scooping up every wrestler he could and domination of the PPV system was driven by it in the 80s and his creative juices flowed like f*ck from late 96 onwards because WCW had him pinned down.

when I talk about competition I am of course talking about other wrestling companies.

When you boil it down, that's pretty much it. He couldn't rely on a small core of guys every single week. Vince needed to have a variety of talent to make his show entertaining. It's not like today, where he could just kill a push, because a guy did something to piss him off. If a talent, or storyline was getting over, he needed to use it.

I would also say, the loosen restrictions on talent helped too. They did not have everything written out for them from matches to promos. They were given the ability to ad lib and change in mid stream, which really helped a lot of guys get over, and thus made them an important part of the show.