9 Pitches For WWE Ruthless Aggression Season 3
4. No Longer The Land Of The Giants
While WWE had moved away from the cartoonish superhero days of Hogan and Warrior, even the Attitude Era’s top table was occupied mostly by oversized or jacked up figures like Triple H and The Rock. In the early ‘00s, though, we started to shift away from the big guys, for spells at least, and ushered in a few champions who looked, relatively speaking, like normal guys.
Most prominent in this era were Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and the most surprising of the bunch, Rey Mysterio. These stars, each shifted out of WCW for their diminutive statures, would defy the odds to rise to the main event, defeating the likes of Triple H, Brock Lesnar, and Randy Orton in the process.
WWE loves to congratulate itself for its progress, and the story of these three guys eventually makes way for the likes of Jeff Hardy, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and Kofi Kingston to have their own main event runs.
For documentary purposes, there’s the stumbling block that only two of the seven men mentioned remain both alive and with the company, but the Ruthless Aggression era’s ability to include smaller competitors and (not coincidentally) better wrestling is well worthy of celebration.