10 Things Only '90s Wrestling Fans Will Understand
1. The New Generation Was Good
They bury it deliberately in retrospectives because doing so puts over by contrast the great, all-cylinders success of the Attitude Era, but the New Generation yielded the greatest artistic triumphs in company history.
They go the self-deprecating route - or they will do, until they're so starved of Network content that they'll draft in Michael Rapaport to tell you that it didn't actually suck - because the greatest babyface comebacks are informed by the hardest ass kickings.
Yes, Phantasio sucked, and yes, the things us old bitters loved didn't draw a dime, but it was still great when it was great; measured against the respective global standards, the WWF in-ring of 1994 was leagues better than the WWE of 2020.
Is that caveat even needed, actually?
The 1994 Doink actually looked like f*cking Doink, for starters, but Bret Hart Vs. Owen Hart had exponentially more depth and craft than anything WWE churns out now, and the story itself was deftly and meticulously plotted to perfection. The 123 Kid's character arc was ingenious, his work almost timeless. And, even though nobody much bought it, there was a premium quality to the big match because the booking, at its 1994 best, nailed that beautiful, graduating sense of build. Even that Mantaur squash match was pretty bitchin'.
That, or it's one's own, personal Kenny's Krib.