10 Things You Need To Know About The Dawn Of WWE's Attitude Era
How the "creative envelope" was opened.
Vince McMahon is frequently (and fairly) accused of reverting to type.
Look no further than Roman Reigns. He is the platonic ideal of McMahon's favoured sports entertainer; he's polished, handsome, and wrestles, despite his herculean physique, as an underdog. His mega-push bears the hallmark of self-indulgence. McMahon is old, but not deaf; he can hear the toxic reactions Reigns generates - but doesn't seem to care. His core audience isn't going anywhere, and generates more revenue than ever before. He is The King, and The King can do as he pleases.
McMahon did not have that luxury in the mid 1990s. Competition was so fierce that remaining static was not an option - but remain static he did, concocting an almost satirical procession of terrible gimmicks. Pirates, garbage men, unhinged clergymen: almost nothing resonated.
A confluence of events both impulsive and premeditated forced his hand; what follows is a chronological recap of that game-changing attitudinal shift.
Credit to WhatCulture's James Dixon and Justin Henry for documenting the genesis of the most crucial years in the history of professional wrestling in North America with the seminal, must-read Titan series - a must-read for anybody who wishes to know more about the subject at hand.
The books are insightful, insanely detailed and removed entirely from the expected, customary revisionist history that will no doubt tarnish the forthcoming 1997: Dawn of the Attitude DVD/Blu-ray release...
10. The Story Begins In 1995
1995 is often considered as the then-WWF's creative and commercial nadir, and with good reason.
McMahon had failed to replace the household names of his 1980s Golden Age. He heavily promoted with a carny bluster his "New Generation" of talent, but despite the best efforts of Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels et al. in quietly ushering in a more dynamic in-ring body of work, the rhetoric was hollow. The colourful, cartoonish production values and caricatured performers remained in vogue.
The emerging, divisive backstage Kliq faction first persuaded McMahon, who already had an inkling that his static approach wasn't working, that sweeping changes were needed. Michaels was emboldened by the dearth of talent elsewhere on the roster. He knew that he and his Kliq buddies held a powerful hand; McMahon had very few other stars, and the backstage soap opera obscured the material concerns shared by talent in a lower-paying environment.
Michaels and the Kliq engineered a clandestine hotel room meeting in Indianapolis by threatening to go on strike. During it, they were unflinching in their assessment of the WWF product. It was passé, dull, detached from the pulse of the wider zeitgeist. McMahon left the meeting knowing he had to change tack.
The results were subtle, but apparent; the main event of 1995's last pay-per-view, In Your House: Season's Beatings, was a bloody, brutal and dynamic affair, standing in stark contrast to the leaden Mabel-led duffers of the summer months.