10 Things You Hate About Modern Wrestling (Thanks To The Attitude Era)
4. Heavily Scripted Promos
Part of the Attitude Era's success was that characters were often the performer's real life personalities turned all the way up. This helped create a strong base of believable personas that felt like three-dimensional human beings who were easy to invest in, largely down to their promos.
Aside from a few exceptions, today's microphone work is horrendous by comparison. Wrestlers sound like robots, not dynamic personalities, and this is largely because their words aren't their own. WWE started scripting their every word in 2002, killing any chance a wrestler has of showing spontaneity, creativity, or personality in their speech, thus hindering their ability to get over.
Guys like Paul Heyman will always shine, but we'll never see another Rock or Austin as a result of this. Today's promos just feel lame compared to the Attitude Era's peak work, and the company's unending quest to control every aspect of their employees' performances is to blame.
Scripted promos may assist those who struggle to come up with their own speeches, but hinder everyone else. Fans were spoiled for great talkers in the Attitude Era. Now, we're left with guys like Seth Rollins, who, for all their positive traits, sounds like bland carbon copies of each other on the mic.