9 Times WWE's Attitude Era Broke The Rules Of Professional Wrestling
Kayfabe may have been dead, but the WWF wasn't exactly respecting the memory of it.
By the middle of the 1990s, professional wrestling was in one heck of a rut. The old good guy vs. bad guy formula was tired, fans bored of seeing muscle-bound superheroes overcome cartoon villains and something needed to change. Extreme Championship Wrestling started a revolution by ignoring the rulebook, giving World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation no choice but to follow suit.
With much larger audiences the rule-breaking of WCW and the WWF was felt that much more, and just like excitable teenagers on a night-out once the rule-breaking had been tasted it was almost impossible to stop. The rulebook was therefore found at the bottom of the pile of books in a less than usable state.
The Attitude Era took the tried and true rules of professional wrestling and set fire to them, exposing the industry in a way not seen previously. Kayfabe may have died a long time prior, but the late 1990s and early 2000s desecrated its corpse in a most vulgar manner.
The list of rules that the WWF broke during this time is as long as a Bruno Sammartino title reign, but here are 10 big ones.