41 Most Disgusting Promotional Tactics In Wrestling History RANKED
22. 2002 - The Katie Vick Angle
WWE will tell you that, on June 24, 2002, Vince McMahon put a formal end to the Attitude Era, and ushered in the days of ‘Ruthless Aggression’.
Thereafter, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Batista and Randy Orton were established as tippy-top headliners as, underneath, the ‘SmackDown Six’ elevated the working standard. Elements of this narrative are true, but Attitude never went away. WWE fans are fond of inserting save points in the wider narrative, but this is a strange instance of the phenomenon. The phrase was screamed all the time on TV for weeks, but then what?
Cena, the poster boy for a declaration Vince quickly grew bored with, was demoted almost as swiftly; Orton’s rise to the top was slippery and protracted; it took nearly three years for Batista to reach the main event; while Lesnar was pushed to a remarkable extent, the idea that WWE was fully committed to a wide-ranging youth movement is simply incorrect.
Meanwhile, the tone and format of WWE programming, if anything, reached a new nadir of bad taste desperation.
Triple H accused Kane of causing the death of his high school crush, Katie Vick, in a car wreck before sexually assaulting the corpse. The idea was ridiculous - how did Kane get photographed for his license?! - but an undeterred Vince McMahon booked an angle in which Triple H, impersonating Kane, reenacted the necrophilia. Complete with gross-out practical effects - “I literally screwed your brains out!” - this was gross. WWE was so intent on pushing the Ruthless Aggression era, and its themes of throwback babyfaces and improved in-ring output, that they…scripted the most vile Attitude Era-coded story imaginable!
The Kane character would actually do something worse, and far more likely to trigger people, if less infamous…