7. De-Emphasis On Matches
As if sitting side-by-side with the previous entry, there was less of a spotlight on actual in-ring wrestling during the Attitude Era. Sure, fans were given the keys to the kingdom in terms of marquee bouts being given away on free television, and they were much more satisfying to watch than the squash matches of the previous generation, but actual grappling took a back seat to shenanigans more often than not. It wasn't abnormal to see Raw Is War open with a lengthy spiel from warring characters, and there were so many non-wrestling personalities floating around that the show started to resemble a soap opera more than a professional wrestling program. Obviously, this wasn't 100% a bad thing, but it would have been nice to see the drama married with more proper wrestling. Brawls became commonplace, and again whilst exciting, wouldn't it have been cool to see more lengthy bouts presented on a more regular basis? There's no reason why the average television or Pay-Per-View main event had to last as little as 10 minutes, for example. Exceptions exist, of course, and the Attitude Era does have a ton of great matches, but wrestling wasn't the real focus.