5 Uncredited Architects Of WWE's Attitude Era
Vince didn't kill his competition by his own sword.
The Attitude Era was one of wrestling's best, even if some of its tropes aren't missed in 2016.
Both progressive and regressive, it was an era in which the WWF were forced to move with the times or succumb to the toils of war. They did so in spectacular fashion and an unrivalled amount of genuine stars were created between 1997 and 2001. The feverish carnival atmosphere was so engaging that most everybody was over, for that matter.
Its primary architects are well-documented. Ultimately, its success lies at the feet of Vince McMahon, who with his back against the wall made the decision, as he rather clumsily put it in a famously expository promo, to entertain fans in a far more "invigorating and extemporaneous manner than ever before".
Steve Austin, The Rock and D-Generation X are the wrestlers inextricably linked with its creation. The images of Stone Cold's beer truck, Rock's raised eyebrow and Triple H's 'tank' are imprinted on the minds of every wrestling fan thanks to countless replays and revisits.
Credit is mostly given where credit is due, but some of the visionaries behind this celebrated period of wrestling history haven't quite made it to the pages of WWE's revisionist history book...
5. The Original Sheik
Witnessing action spill from the ring and into the arena remains one of wrestling's most thrilling sights, several years after it became commonplace.
At its best, the trope engages fans because it's a simple method of maintaining the illusion that wrestling can both be real and involve two grapplers whose hatred for one another is such that it cannot be confined to the ring. Steve Austin made the trope his own in 1998, but you'd have to go back several decades to discover its true originator - the 'Original' Sheik, Ed Farhat.
Farhat in his legendarily innovative matches with Bobo Brazil would terrify audience members by careening through them, blowing fireballs and eating paper ravenously, all in an attempt to maintain and enhance his reputation as a lunatic. It was also a smart way of hiding his limitations in the ring. Unlike the majority of his peers, the Sheik didn't possess much technical prowess - so much so that he drew their ire.
They thought that he was hurting the business by taking so many cheap shortcuts. Little did they know at the time, he was actually prolonging its lifespan.
It would take years for Sheik's influence to take hold, which just illustrates the extent to which he was the true Innovator of Violence.