10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About WWE's Attitude Era
7. It All Spawned From ECW
To deny ECW's influence on the Attitude Era would be foolish. Paul Heyman's cult promotion's extreme programming captured the zeitgeist and Vince McMahon's attention, leading to a cloudy 'working relationship' that saw WWE partly fund the ECW's operations until the bitter end. There's no denying that Vince's shift towards Attitude's edgier, adult-oriented product was inspired by ECW either, but to say WWE's most successful period was a complete ripoff (as many have done over the years) is inaccurate.
WWE's Hardcore division aped the trashier side of ECW's wrestling style, but Attitude's genesis had as much to do with the Mr. McMahon character as anything else, and where did that come from? WCW.
Vince's evil boss persona has become the benchmark, but Eric Bischoff did it first, and Easy E's emergence coincided with WCW's own thematic shift. While McMahon himself has stated that Attitude came from shows like Jerry Springer, it's far likelier that he felt threatened by WCW's prominence, examined what they'd done to put them in that position, and decided he could do it better.
He was right. WWE prospered, WCW sunk, and while the ECW style was certainly mirrored in certain aspects of Attitude's programming, there was more to McMahon's success than copying the Monday Night Wars' third biggest promotion.