10 Wrestling Images That Will Make You Feel Really Old
The Attitude Era was a long time ago...
Over the past several years, WWE's ratings have been declining steadily. Today, the company routinely breaks records for low Raw viewership, rivaling numbers that came before the Attitude Era. All of that points to some hard facts - namely, not only are fans losing interest in the product, but the company is having a difficult time getting new viewers.
That means that most WWE fans are "hardcores" - we've been watching the product for a long time, and we're pretty much guaranteed to keep doing the same. We've seen a lot of changes in the business (and a lot of frustrating aversion to change), but we've stuck around through good times and bad.
Still, it's not often we get a chance to think about just how long it's been. When we do, it's a bit humbling. We've seen records set and broken. We've seen talented up-and-coming stars become retired old men and women. We've seen fans become champions.
Sometimes, all it takes is a picture to convey that passage of time - and that feeling of being really, really old. After all, just see how you feel when you look at a picture of Vince McMahon wearing a polyester jacket with the old-school WWF logo on it.
In that spirit, here are ten wrestling images that will make you feel really old...
10. Turning Face
If you weren't online in 1999, then take it from me - the so-called "internet wrestling community" at the time was just as active and angry as it is today, and one of the blunders that got us the most worked up was when Eric Bischoff decided Rey Misterio, Jr. needed to lose his mask. The talented star was hundreds of times more marketable with it on, but WCW's President was dead-set on disrespecting Lucha tradition. Rey was forced to lose his mask or his job, so he was defeated for his iconic garment (by Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, of all people).
For the next two years, Rey wrestled bare-faced. He was still amazing, of course, but he wasn't a superstar. After WCW folded, Rey signed with WWE, and the company that was actually good at making money put the mask back on him. In subsequent years, Mysterio became a main-eventer, sold a lot merchandise, and earned a lot of cash for himself and the company.
So why should that make you feel old? Probably because there are fans who don't even know that Mysterio wrestled without a mask. It was a huge part of his career and an incredibly controversial angle from a popular era, but it's been such a long time since it happened - and WWE is so good at controlling history - that it's basically been erased from ever having occurred. If you remember it, make sure to tell your grandkids.