5 things we miss about the Attitude Era

4: Blood

No matter how much people may disagree, blood definitely adds to a match – just take a look at the match between Samoa Joe and Finn Balor at NXT TakeOver: Dallas. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not advocating for blading which was a horrific practice but we definitely miss blood on current WWE programming. Blood automatically makes a match feel important and visually helps take feuds to the next level.

Instead of blading or wrestlers stiffing each other to induce bleeding, WWE could just use blood packs like they did for Roman Reigns’ feud with Triple H in the lead up to WrestleMania 32. As for the fans, instead of criticizing blood packs they should realize that wrestling, as an industry, has evolved beyond that kind of barbarity.

3: The Monday Night War

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The Monday Night War changed pro wrestling forever.

We can directly attribute the birth of the Attitude Era to the content the World Championship Wrestling was putting out at the same time, which was edgier content that was geared more towards young adults and adults than to the younger demographic that WWE targeted during the New Generation Era. WCW’s New World Order angle which was taking place around that time, which is one of the hottest storylines in pro wrestling history, also helped convince the WWE to expand the horizons of their content.

Monday Night Raw and WCW Nitro went head to head on Monday nights during this period and with the competition so stiff, it pushed both companies to new creative heights and forced them to mix up their product on a regular basis in order to keep fans hooked. It was no longer just about pay-per-view buys once a month but ratings on Monday nights took a position of prime importance. Never again will we see such compelling programming on free television on such a regular basis.

During this era, the problem of unimportant midcard matches was never a problem, with cards stacked on a nightly basis due to the weekly tug-of-war for ratings between WWE and WCW. Everyone on the roster had their role and they knew that they were part of a team fighting for supremacy in the ratings.