10 Awesome Things You Don't Remember About WWE's Ruthless Aggression Era

The Ruthless Aggression era has a pretty definitive beginning and end: it was ushered in with a promo cut by Vince McMahon to the entire (and enormous) post-Invasion roster in front of fans at the Gund Arena in Cleveland to kick off the 24th June 2002 RAW and ended when the PG edict came down on July 22nd 2008.

In that infamous promo, McMahon was his usual bellicose self, ranting to his employees about what had made him the success he was: the quality of ruthless aggression.

That new Attitude was an introspective one. Without any appreciable outside competition, the company created the brand extension, turning in upon itself to create new, artificial rivalries, rivalries that sought to retain some of the edginess of the Attitude Era.

The era saw the in-ring comeback of Shawn Michaels after what was thought to be a permanent retirement, and the return of the supernatural Dead Man who€™d retire him for good. Olympic legend Kurt Angle became a wrestling machine and midcard hardman Bradshaw became a Wrestling God. Edge became Rated-R and Chris Jericho became a rock star.

That€™s what everybody knows and what everybody remembers. However, this article is dedicated to ten lesser known examples of the finer things WWE brought to us in the Ruthless Aggression era, things that you might have forgotten...