9 Times WWE's Attitude Era Broke The Rules Of Professional Wrestling

4. These Boys Have Real Names

Undertaker Stephanie Wedding
WWE.com

When I was growing up, Hulk Hogan's name was Hulk Hogan. Randy Savage was Randy Savage, Roddy Piper was Roddy Piper and Earthquake's name was Earthquake. Sure, they may have been performers playing characters, but real names? Nah, Ultimate Warrior was Ultimate Warrior, and pro wrestling sure wasn't going to acknowledge a real name on-screen.

The Attitude Era smashed this to bits. The most notable moment of real human exposure came with The Undertaker in 1999, as the Ministry of Darkness began to spiral out of control. Vince McMahon managed to turn somewhat-face during this time, at least until being revealed as the 'Higher Power'.

The WWE openly began referring to Taker as 'Mark' at this time, stating that Mark Calaway had lost his grip on reality and had begun living his gimmick. The rule of openly referring to things such as gimmicks and real names was a total no-no up until this point.

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Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.