15 EXACT Moments Failed WWE Attitude Era Gimmicks Actually Got Over

Contrary to an established narrative - a narrative established by Vince Russo because it makes him look like a super genius decades later - not everybody was over in the WWE Attitude Era. 

WWE itself likes to parrot this take because they love to celebrate their own history and their mighty victory over those yahoos down in WCW. If you actually watch the Raw archive on Netflix - or at least, the few episodes from 1998 that Netflix feels they can get away with airing - the amount of library-silent undercard matches is astonishing. And it’s not as if the vast majority of these matches dragged on. With Russo in full effect, they barely reached five minutes. The fans did not have time to get bored; they just weren’t that bothered about the vast majority of the roster or the art of pro wrestling itself. Vince Russo did pen storylines for most of the guys, but while unforgettably stupid, they weren’t effective. 

The Road Warrior pop was a real thing; the LOD 2000 pop decidedly was not. You could hear an ant piss on cotton when anything under the NWA banner happened. Even in 1999, when the WWF was smashing WCW’s face in with a fire extinguisher every single week, Mr. Ass was floundering, the Acolytes couldn’t buy a reaction, and Attitude Era fans generally were just waiting for the next sighting of cleavage.

Hell, even Mick Foley wrote in his first book that he was disappointed by the crowd reaction to his unhinged performance at King Of The Ring 1998. Foley was a great character across 1996 and 1997, and was the promotion’s most valuable asset not named Stone Cold Steve Austin in the first half of 1998, but he only got all the way over in the second half of the year when he adopted a more goofily vulnerable side to his Mankind character. 

The wrestlers who did get over got over in a big way - and this is when precisely they did it. 

The Dudley Boyz felt a little bit Public Enemy when they first turned up on WWF screens. 

This was less than ideal, since the Public Enemy were an infamous bust, but suboptimal parallels were there to be drawn. Both teams carried tables around. Both teams were rotund. Neither updated their ECW look when entering the big time, which had the obvious effect of them looking small-time. As mad as this might read, if you’ve ever heard Bully Ray open his mouth and say literally anything over the past several years, he was actually smarter than that. 

The Dudleyz quickly disassociated themselves from the bingo hall with a camouflage attire update and started to use tables more liberally. In the sort of blistering sprint that is sadly lost to time, they lost to the Hardyz at Royal Rumble 2000 in the first-ever Tables match. It was incredible, a rapid-fire crowd-pleaser in which every table wreckage followed the next with a glorious blast beat rhythm. As great and as influential as the match was, Bubba Ray and D-Von truly got over and developed an identity the next night on Raw when they blasted Terri Runnels through a table. 

As bleak as this was, following Jeff Jarrett’s move to WCW, a vacancy had opened up for misogyny - and the Dudleyz were very interested in the role. If anything, their one flaw was working too hard. 

Fuelled by the confidence of getting over in the Fed - something that had eluded many ECW acts - the Dudleyz very quickly started whipping out the catchphrases and never looked back.