Me: Chapter Eleven – Wrestling with the Attitude Era


Still hasn’t gotten better than this… STFU Fight Forever! For… plenty-a reason, right?

I’m not sure if this is true or not.

But I heard stories.

Something l;;ike, you could rent a brand new game from Blockbuster. Especially if it came from an N64 cartrige. And you could like… tale a hair dryer? I think? To remove the sticker from the cartridege and puit that sticker on another N64 cartridege…?  Then. You know. You’d return that old game with the new sticker bac  to Blockbuster.

I dunno. I heard stories about that anyways.

And of course. Obviously. WWF No Mercy is the best wrestling video game of all time. Apparently, it’s #6 of all time videog ames. Period. According to me.
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I’m pretty sure. Just.

“The Attitude Era,” kinda coincided with this HUGE. Cu;ltural shift towards rebelion. And counter-culture. That all began with Gen-X’ers and their hair bands and stuffs. (Well, I suppose hairbands became a thing out of the boomer juggalos that were KISS fans, and then hair bands came frrom bbomexers that spawned as a result of all of that, either way) Those hair bands continued with Gen-X’ers and their grunge and coffee music. And then it ended with millenials screaming their lungs out over Nsync and Eminem and Limp Bizkit and stuffs.With LOTS of generational crossover throughout ALL of that.

The biggest example bneing…

You know. On TRL.

And. Lots to do with…

Probably a lot of what would modernly be called, “homophobia.” But. Of course…

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At the end of the day, though, wrestling pretty much leaned into all of that. Regellion. Hair metal. Your Nintendos. And Segas. You wiley rascally Gen-Xials. And it all began with Hulk Hogan.

American icon. Defeating all of the Rushkies and all that in the 80’s. Now in the mid-late 90’s Hogan’s evil as all hell. Cause. Hollywood~! Bruh! He’s taken all of the moneys and he hates the little Hulksters! And. You know. In response…. The other side of the coin sees: The highly colorful “surfer” Sting wrestler person became quiet, brooding, The Crow-like (I mean, he was obviously a rip off of The Crow). But. Dare I say, he was… you know, Batman-like.

And that concept? It kicked the shit out of the industry leader of wrestling. WWF/E.

So. Vince McMahon and all of his ruthlessness. Went back to his roots and stole concepts from the local territories. This time, he personally asked THE lead promoter of the buzz-worthy Tri-State territory for… local hotspots. Specifically, in the New York/New Jersey/Tri-State/However the east coast works area.

THAT lead promoter of the Tri-State erritory gave Vince McMahon a couple of locations, clubs, things, that were off the beaten path. But were edgy. Hotspots. Local hangouts. “Cool.” You know? Shit. Merhaps the locations weren’t even “off the beaten path,” they were probably well known. But. Vince McMahon is a human being tyhat, in around 2002-2004 didn’t believe that the American people, in general, knew what a burrito was. This is a legit story.

After gettomg some “hot” New York area locations from Paul Heyaman.

Vince McMahon then ran, I belive, but I’m 99%^sure that Im wrong by saying, they were live television tapings in the middle of those clubs. Hotspots. Places off the beaten path. But were edgy. “Cool.” And WWF Shotgun Saturday Night was born. More than likely, these shows weren’t filmed live. But I’m not about to spend an hour trying to confirm the, more than likely, obviousl

And the WWF/E’s Attitude Erta began. Shut up. Arguements.Shotgun Saturday Night is THE catalyst of “the attitude era.”

GTFI,
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“GET IN THERE, NASH!” That’s what I, probably yelled.

This is one of the ony tmes I’ve ever been… I don’t know the word or phrase I’m trying to convey… uh… simultaneously… socially AND emotionally involved in a wrestling match…? Something like that.

You see. Scott Hall was pinning Sting. My hero. The whole reason why I became a wrestling fan. And I wanted Kevin Nash to break up the pinfall. Even though he was busy outside of the ring with The Giant.

But alas, Scott Hall pinned Sting. Middle of the ring. Bret Hart interference. Et al. Didn’t matter. nWo Hollywood was victoriopus over the WolfPac.

BOOOOOOO All around.

One more for those damn bad guys.

Actually. Come to think of it, the actual last time I can remember getting “physically” upset with wrestling to the point where I shouted and stuffs.

It was a few months after all of thatr.

Goldberg. WCW’s newest plaything put his world title on the line against Sting. For the first time ever.  The two of them had a match.

Sting had Goldberg in the Death Lock. Homedude was DEFINITELY nodding hiks head “YES!” He gives up. But instead. I’m pretty sure Bret Hart gets all jealous that Goldberg didn’t kick hSting’s head off in this match and gives a DDT to Sting. Giving Goldberg the win.

Blah. Stupid referee. GOLDBERG NODDED SO FUCKING MUCH BRUH! He gave up in the death lock! Fuck off!

RANDOM SIDENOTE: My dude, Meng had Goldberg. WCW World Champion in the Tongan Death Grip. Goldberg’s shoulders were on the mat. But Nick Patrick, the referee (homboy wasn’t even a heel ref at the time) just kept asking Bill if he’d give up instead of counting the pine. Legit. Meng. Haku. Whatever. That motherfucer was the first person to beat the streak IDEC. Homeboy had Goldberg’s shopulders down for a pin. But instead of countin g it, Nick Patrick kept asking Goldberg if he gave up. This was somewheres in August-September. ’98.
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On the other channel.

At THIS specoifoc time? The Rock was becoming a babyface after The Nation didn’t like him anymore. Or something…? I don’t remeber how Rock got out of The Nation of Domination off the top of my head. And damn it… NBC cancelled Young Rock!@ If only they had a streaming service for me to recollect how that happened! Ugh.

Also around this time Mankind had become pretty damn cool. Mick Fucking Foley. Right. Homeboy had, at this point, already gone through… you know…


All of this…

I mean, I’ve got earlier memories of WWF and stuffs/ Like, friend of mine had recorded WrestleMania XIC on VHS and let me borrow it soon there after. And I remember watchikng some of the classic Austin/McMahon stuffs. There was a 20ish something that hung around Robery’s hopuse whom we called, “Chainsaw Hickeysaw” Charlie… something like that anyways… anyways. Homedude was convinced that Kane dropped buckets of human blood on Austin that one time. I mean. Robert and I were SIGNIFICANTLY younger than him but we knew that shit wasn’t real. lol

I dudn’t watch it live. But I remember the hubbub of Austin Stunning Mcmahon for the first time. Merhaps I saw that week’s episde of Livewire or something. That was… you know…over a year before all of the blood stuffs happened.

TBF, the very first memory I have watching WWF was a match on Raw where Rocky Maivia had a match against Ahmed johnson. Rocky gave him a powerslam and Ahmed shouted, “FUCK!” To sell it. Mty mom happeed to be in the famly/whateer room that night. At that moment. The moment I first ever did the Monday Night War channel flipping. And she wasdn’t pleased to say the least. I mean, I didn’t get in trouble or anything. But. Yeah. She probably just said something like, “Did he just say that?!” I dunno. (Last time I did an attitude-era binge watch, this moment was still there on the ole’ WWE Network. No idea if they’ve censored it since).

I was talking about Mankind, wasn’t I?

Like. Legit. It;’s, mostly due to Mrs. Foley’s bamby boy that I started watching WWF insterad of WCW. And. It all began because of this.


No… legit.

I watched Mr. McMahon up tyhere/ And he gave Mankind the Hardcore Championship.

In every reality, the Hardcore Championship made me become a bigger fan of WWF over WCW. And I mean. This momenht here, basically solidified it all.


I didn’t stick around long enough to hear Tony to say, “That’s going to put some butts in the seats.”

With Robert sitting next to me, I immediately changed the channel.

In my mind’s eye, once Raw was put om, Mankind had Shane McMahon in some sort of armbar and was threatening to break the dude’s arm for the title match. More than likely, there were a couple of things that happened in between all of that. But whatever. Memory says. Shane’s in an armbar before Tony can even saythe bit about butts.

But the war? It wasn’t over.

And… I mean… My love for WCW didn’t immediately die or anything either.

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