Awesome attitude era moments

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Tough Enough September 27 2001

Live finale from WWF New York of the original series. Been a MTV production throughout. Nothing like Raw and SmackDown. Wasn't on Australian TV so it was fun to finally watch all of it all these years later even if it did make me feel old. Nidia wins the women's contract and Maven wins the men's (both genders wrestled each other in training incidentally). Maven would go on to have a painkiller addiction and needed rehab. He truly lived the life of a WWE Superstar :D
 

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Raw October 1 2001

Raw Is War is no longer the show's name as of tonight. (I should've been writing Raw Is War [date] all this time.) US President George Bush announced a "War on Terrorism" and the US and others are soon going to invade Afghanistan. Name change likely a response. Marker on the road to the end of the Attitude Era.

WCW referees changed to grey shirts from white which has me wondering if behind the scenes they still had plans on keeping the brand going.

Booker T is WCW Tag Team Champion with Test. DDP is getting soft rebooted as a smiling guy who does yoga or something.

Invasion angle will be finished sooner rather than later.
 
Bomberboyokay said:
Tough Enough September 27 2001

Live finale from WWF New York of the original series. Been a MTV production throughout. Nothing like Raw and SmackDown. Wasn't on Australian TV so it was fun to finally watch all of it all these years later even if it did make me feel old. Nidia wins the women's contract and Maven wins the men's (both genders wrestled each other in training incidentally). Maven would go on to have a painkiller addiction and needed rehab. He truly lived the life of a WWE Superstar :D
Click to expand...

Tough Enough season 1 (and 2) aired on Fox8 in Australia.
 
No Mercy 2001

The Rock defends the WCW Championship against Chris Jericho. That this match even happened fascinates me. WWF rarely has faces wrestle each other and these two have firmly established upper card status. Not that I have a problem with it. Jericho wins his first "big one".

Steve Austin defends the WWF Championship against Kurt Angle and fellow WCW/ECW member Rob Van Dam (his first WWF PPV main event). RVD being part of the Alliance but staying face the whole time is interesting.

If today's WWE did an invasion angle (suppose they bought AEW and TNA) I doubt they'd allow these fun nuances.
 
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Bomberboyokay said:
No Mercy 2001

The Rock defends the WCW Championship against Chris Jericho. That this match even happened fascinates me. WWF rarely has faces wrestle each other and these two have firmly established upper card status. Not that I have a problem with it. Jericho wins his first "big one".

Steve Austin defends the WWF Championship against Kurt Angle and fellow WCW/ECW member Rob Van Dam (his first WWF PPV main event). RVD being part of the Alliance but staying face the whole time is interesting.

If today's WWE did an invasion angle (suppose they bought AEW and TNA) I doubt they'd allow these fun nuances.
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under this scenario, your AEW/Impact people are going on massive losing streaks because in WWE's mind they're a bunch of nobodies, otherwise they would have already been in WWE.
 

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Survivor Series 2001

Jazz debuts. She's an Alliance member for about 90 minutes :p

WWF wins the winner-take-all main event. The Alliance is defeated. The Invasion angle finished.

The Invasion angle wasn't nearly as good as it should've been. Absence of actual headline WCW names besides Booker T and DDP hurt it. Having WWF wrestlers lead it in the storylines hurt it. Making it a big McMahon vs McMahon angle hurt it. If you were a WCW fan or a WWF fan with a reasonable knowledge of what WCW was it must've been underwhelming.

Viewed in this context, that most of the 2001 Nitro audience didn't become Raw viewers makes much sense. They were WCW fans and Vince McMahon did a good job running the WCW name down. It literally ends with Vince McMahon waving his fists like he's won a grand final.

Salt in the wound: Most absent WCW headliners would end up in WWF days, weeks and months after this...
 
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Raw November 19 2001

...Ric Flair makes his first WWF appearance since 1993. When Shane and Stephanie sold their stock months ago, he was the buyer. Flair and Vince are 50%-50% co-owners!

William Regal has to kiss Vince McMahon's ass to get his job back. This must've been a Vince idea in real life to go all the way.

Paul Heyman is storyline fired and Jerry Lawler has returned to commentary.
 
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Bomberboyokay said:
Raw November 19 2001

...Ric Flair makes his first WWF appearance since 1993. When Shane and Stephanie sold their stock months ago, he was the buyer. Flair and Vince are 50%-50% co-owners!

William Regal has to kiss Vince McMahon's ass to get his job back. This must've been a Vince idea in real life to go all the way.

Paul Heyman is storyline fired and Jerry Lawler has returned to commentary.
Click to expand...

Vince eartugging gif
 
Raw November 26 2001

William Regal pisses on Big Show.

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Trish Stratus vs Stacy Keibler bra and panties match. As a teen it was easy to work out Trish was winning when she wore trousers.
 
Vengeance 2001

Steve Austin defeats Kurt Angle to retain the WWF Championship.

Chris Jericho defeats The Rock to win the World Championship (WCW Championship until the night after Survivor Series).

Chris Jericho defeats Steve Austin in the unification match to become Undisputed Champion.

Jericho winning surprised people. Looked set up to be Austin vs Rock, and Jericho was the only one of the four to have never been WWF Champion. Perhaps Austin vs Rock was held off with WrestleMania in mind (didn't end up happening in 2002 but did in 2003).

Jericho has the bottom of his long hair dyed red which I thought was cool at the time. Think it changes to purple soon.

This concludes Austin's sixth and final WWF Championship reign. He'll never hold a belt again.
 
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SmackDown December 13 2001

Stacy Keibler gets dacked more than I remember.

Jerry Lawler's been back a month and even for the time his "OH MY GOD WIMMIN!1!" stuff is old and grating. Novelty of his quips is long gone. Prefer Heyman had stuck around.

Steve Austin has made WHAT chants a thing.
 
2001 complete.

Positives:

- WrestleMania 17 is the best WrestleMania of the Attitude Era so far
- WCW invading for a few months is pretty exciting

Negatives:

- Once WCW and ECW and the Invasion angle are bedded in it becomes less entertaining
- None of the WCW and ECW acquisitions are allowed to stick the landing. Rob Van Dam maybe. Booker T and DDP are written as goofs.
- McMahon family overinvolvement. Their most self-indulgent year.
- Rikishi and Jerry Lawler are there by the end of the year and their gimmicks are tired.

Least entertaining year once the Invasion angle is bedded in. Which sounds worse than I mean it to. Novelty can only last so long and its now over 4 years since they started throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what works.

Wrestling needs new wrestlers and characters to keep things fresh. Put in The Simpsons terms, by the end of 2001 you can see a small case of the Season 8s slipping in. Watching in hindsight and knowing which wrestlers and commentators persist loooooooooooooooooong after this you can see why the audience would fade heavily in the years ahead. But that's the future.

Three months of the Attitude Era left.
 
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