25 Things You Learn Binge Watching Every WWE Ruthless Aggression PPV
2002-2008 was post-'Attitude' but pre-PG for WWE, and it was absolutely gripping.
"Ruthless Aggression".
Vince McMahon coined that term on the 24 June 2002 edition of Raw. WWE were 24 hours removed from King Of The Ring and less than 2 months past being forced to 'Get The F Out' by changing the acronym from WWF. It was a wild time to be a fan, and it's so much fun to revisit everything the era had to offer.
WWE officially went PG on 22 July 2008. That makes Vengeance '02 the first pay-per-view of the Ruthless Aggression period and Great American Bash '08 the last. In total this article encapsulates a massive 88 different PPVs between those 2 dates. There's a lot to power through.
Stars like Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Edge, Batista, Randy Orton and more shot to fame during the Ruthless Aggression days. They were joined by firm faves like Triple H, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, Hulk Hogan and many others as McMahon tried to supplant the wildly popular 'Attitude' days with something fresh that'd push his product towards the future.
Incredibly, this "new" WWE borrowed from 'Attitude' and even former rivals WCW at times. That's just a sample of the observations gleaned whilst binging on an era which gave way to PG but was still being referenced right up until Cena's retirement in 2025 - the end of his career puts a bow on those first words he uttered to Kurt Angle when debuting all those years ago.
Ruthless Aggression was chaotic. Here's everything learned from feasting on the best and worst of it.
25. Vengeance 2002 Was One Hell Of A Kickoff
What a way to make a first impression.
Vince's call to see more "Ruthless Aggression" from his roster was still ringing in everyone's ears when Vengeance 2002 went live on the air in July. There was a vibrancy to the pay-per-view that hadn't been there for King Of The Ring the prior month. The live crowd in Detroit? Right up for the night, and so was every worker who came through the curtain.
The first RA pay-per-view opened with a fun tables bout pitting Bubba Ray and Spike Dudley vs. Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. From there, people were treated to John Cena’s PPV debut vs. Chris Jericho, RVD vs. Brock Lesnar for the Intercontinental belt (they'd been opponents in the KOTR final), Christian and Lance Storm vs. Edge and Hulk Hogan, and a fab Triple Threat main event pitting The Rock vs. Kurt Angle vs. The Undertaker.
It proved to be an unbelievably fun start to the era in terms of supershows. There was even a teaser for things to come when Triple H agonised over whether or not he should sign with Eric Bischoff's Raw or Stephanie McMahon's SmackDown. His old buddy Shawn Michaels emerged to get the ball rolling on a D-Generation X reunion.
Vengeance was stacked. Even lesser bouts like Jamie Noble vs. Billy Kidman, Booker T vs. Big Show and Jeff Hardy vs. William Regal had varying degrees of something to offer. The show really couldn't have gone better, and it reflected Vince's call to arms in late-June.
Cena's first PPV and a main event 3-way often called one of the greatest WWE matches ever would've been enough, but the card had way more to shout about above and beyond those gems.