What year did WWE start to lose their edge?

[Guest Biggles]

For me late 2000 was the start, with the conclusion to the Angle/Steph/HHH triangle and the whole Austin/Rikishi crap. From there they went downhill at an alarming rate. The following Mania was really good but most other stuff was weak, and the Invasion was horrible for a number of reasons. There have been other high points since but they've more been the case of a good show here, a good show there, decent match here, as opposed to any sustained period of something excellent. At no time since late 2000 has the WWE had my interest or captivated me as a fan. I watch, less than I used to, in the hope I'll see something I like, and every now and then I see a flash of something but when they screwed up the Invasion angle and laid WCW to rest I was pretty much done with them.

[Dangerous A 0]

For the most part, I thought 2001 was botched very badly, but I also felt it could've been salvaged somewhat with some decent booking.

 

2002 is where desperation started kicking in like bringing in the nWo, which kind of threw the lockeroom into chaos because the feeling of bringing in 3 guys at high salaries who had bolted to the competition years earlier. Then the split took Raw into a horrible creative tailspin. They even talked HBK back into the mix to help save it. Raw gave us Katie Vick, Jackie Gayda wrestling, and the Dudley's pointing out Ass Cream exists in WWE land. While the split created the SD 6, that wasn't enough to help hide the embarassing stuff on the other end of the WWE spectrum.

[Guest slmon]

“Even though I really don't like the guy, I'm going to say right around the time they decided to not put the belt on RVD, when he lost to Taker I believe. I'm not going to say it was just that one thing, but I remember a lot of people I knew quit watching around this time.”

 

Agreed; I was watching that night and - although I very much liked and still like Taker - I was excited for RVD. And I remember there being a very big pop when he got the phantom title win. As I recall, the traffic was too heavy for the Smartmarks forum to handle that night! There certainly were technically better wrestlers at the time to put the title on. However, this was around the very tail end of RVD’s mega-overness. Putting the title on him would have surprised fans and pleased most of them. Fans would have truly gotten the message that yes, in fact, anything “could” happen in the WWE. Instead, WWE went down the same old stale road. Too bad in retrospect.

[Guest deinly1]

The true end of the "attitude" era was when SmackDown debuted, really though the downfall of the WWE product would have to be right after the brand split. The Austin heel turn wasn't that bad, we got to see him beating Lita with a chair afterall. His feud with Angle had some funny moments, it brought the what!? (which shouldn't be used unless its 2002) chants. However, I totally agree that when princess Steph took over creative, the angles and payoffs have been shit for the most part- save a few times such as Benoit/Guerrero winning top fed titles in the same month. HHH is just too damn powerful backstage and his crush of RVD and hijacking of the who ran down Austin angle are just the examples that stick out first. Personally I would have liked to see Rock be the one who masterminded the Austin hit-n-run especially since they tried to push Rikishi (being both samoan) and they even swerved it that way for a week or two. Rock going heel again would have breathed new life in his getting staler by the minute at the time act, I could envision him being all about money and reasoning he took out Austin because it would make Rock the richest guy in the WWE with Austin on the sidelines not selling merch. The creative heads couldn't see that perfectly logical reason and instead gave in to Trips and let him be the #1 heel instead of the #2 face which is the most he should ever be, is #2 because let's face it- he's not that damn good.

[Silence 0]

The true end of the "attitude" era was when SmackDown debuted, really though the downfall of the WWE product would have to be right after the brand split. The Austin heel turn wasn't that bad, we got to see him beating Lita with a chair afterall. His feud with Angle had some funny moments, it brought the what!? (which shouldn't be used unless its 2002) chants. However, I totally agree that when princess Steph took over creative, the angles and payoffs have been shit for the most part- save a few times such as Benoit/Guerrero winning top fed titles in the same month. HHH is just too damn powerful backstage and his crush of RVD and hijacking of the who ran down Austin angle are just the examples that stick out first. Personally I would have liked to see Rock be the one who masterminded the Austin hit-n-run especially since they tried to push Rikishi (being both samoan) and they even swerved it that way for a week or two. Rock going heel again would have breathed new life in his getting staler by the minute at the time act, I could envision him being all about money and reasoning he took out Austin because it would make Rock the richest guy in the WWE with Austin on the sidelines not selling merch. The creative heads couldn't see that perfectly logical reason and instead gave in to Trips and let him be the #1 heel instead of the #2 face which is the most he should ever be, is #2 because let's face it- he's not that damn good.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Since then, WWE and "missed/blown opportunities" have become synonomous with each other.

 

This has already been stated by other people, but the year I think WWE lost their edge started in September 2000. HHH screwed Angle over in the Love Triangle in what people were expecting to be Stephanie joining Angle after he beat HHH at Unforgiven.

 

The aftermath of Fully Loaded 2000 is somewhat debatable, as Jericho, Benoit, and Angle were about to be the new main-eventers in WWE, but WWE chickened out and had all 3 of them lose against HHH, The Rock, and The Undertaker, which killed their momentum.

 

In addition, the aforementioned "Who hit Austin" angle, especially when Rikishi of all people was revealed as the driver.

 

November 2000, however, is really when creative took a nosedive when Stephanie took over in Kreski's place (Austin dropping HHH from a car), and she still hasn't improved in her several years of being the head writer for WWE.

[Guest JMA]

I actually stopped watching wrestling entirely during 2002. However, this was partly motivated by what happened in 2001. I believe I stopped watching on September 2nd, 2002 (the day Triple H was awared the World title, which I missed). I came back in early 2003, and luckily missed both the necrophillia and Al Wilson storylines.

[Silence 0]

I actually stopped watching wrestling entirely during 2002. However, this was partly motivated by what happened in 2001. I believe I stopped watching on September 2nd, 2002 (the day Triple H was awared the World title, which I missed). I came back in early 2003, and luckily missed both the necrophillia and Al Wilson storylines.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You know what the truly sad thing about the necrophilia angle was, besides the angle even happening in the first place?

 

It was on ChrisMWaters' birthday that year.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

2001 definetly. There were bad signs in late 2000, and Steph took over the writing, and really early 2001 is where it all started to go to shit. X-7 was sort of the last night of real glory.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

1999 fucking sucked.

 

I loved 2000.

 

2001 was good and bad. Stone Cold being a heel was great, but turning him into a complete pussy KILLED that aspect.

 

2002 was toberable.

 

2003 was almost as 99 bad.

 

2004 was great until midway.

 

2005 has been good / fair.

 

So my vote goes to '99.

[hyperchord24 0]

I guess I missed all those botches. Angle/HHH/steph botched? Invasion angle botched? nWo invasion botched? Could someone explain these to me?

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

I guess I missed all those botches.  Angle/HHH/steph botched?  Invasion angle botched?  nWo invasion botched?  Could someone explain these to me?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Man, I'm not sure I have that kind of time to explain all these. So I'll at least start with the nuts and bolts and someone else can come back and fill in the holes.

 

HHH/Angle/Steph - This was the hot program that was carrying the WWF through the summer of 2000 when these characters were all scorching hot. From the moment Angle debuted on the show, they slowly started teasing Steph having an interest in him. This slowly burned throughout the year until it was apparent that something was going on between the two, culminating in a kiss between the two circa Summerslan. It was booked brilliantly, and was an angle that seemed to attract a large female audience to the product. By the fall of 2000, HHH was getting super over as a babyface, to the point that the fans were begging him to beat the shit out of Angle and Steph. The only logical payoff was Steph doing the turn and HHH playing superman. However, his real life relationship with Steph was heating up at this time, not to mention the returning Steve Austin would bump him to #3 babyface. So basically HHH pulled a power play, squashed Angle, remained heel and the whole thing was dropped. This was the first major angle to not have a blowoff and turned away a large number of fans, including the female audience I mentioned earlier in this post.

[cabbageboy 0]

Also, didn't they briefly have Steph form a tedious alliance with Angle once he won the title?

 

I'll touch on the Invasion....I assume you know the WWF purchased WCW in March, 2001, right? The problem is that they didn't bother to sign much of anyone notable right off the bat and proceeded to do the Invasion with Booker, DDP, and a bunch of Natural Born Thriller types. The initial plan was to give Shane's WCW Raw, but after they did a couple of matches on Raw fans reacted so violently (namely to the hideous Booker/Bagwell match) that the idea was dropped. From then the angle was briefly salvaged when they added the ECW guys to the mix...but then announced Steph was the "owner" of ECW. It didn't help that at that point the WWF didn't own ECW's trademarks so the whole bunch of jobbers were referred to as The Alliance. Since this ragtag bunch didn't have much of anyone that was over (aside from the debuting RVD, who got over immediately at the Invasion PPV) they turned Austin to the Alliance and he became leader. From there, it seemed like everyone was fighting over some sort of title, since there were 2 world titles, 2 secondary belts (IC/US), 2 cruiser titles, 2 tags, and a hardcore title. The WCW guys like DDP and Booker T were totally jobbed out to UT and The Rock and made to look like jokers at every turn. Since the angle was dying a horrible death they just booked a 5 on 5 for Survivor Series for total control of the company, and of course the WWF side won. In theory the Invaders should have had to leave forever, but since seemingly everyone on that side had a title of some sort no one really was canned and those were were "fired" were back in less than 2 months. From then on the WWF went out and hired every WCW reject they could get (Flair, Bischoff, Nash, Hogan, Hall, Steiner, Goldberg) without realizing it was too late to draw money with those guys.

 

That would lead us into the goofy NWO angle......

 

Vince was so outraged at Flair buying out Steph and Shane's stock that he vowed to kill his own company (nevermind he'd just SAVED his company from the Alliance). Thus, he brought in the NWO of Hall, Nash, and Hogan. There were several problems here:

 

1. The WWF fans only cared about Hogan and had no interest in seeing him in this WCW created character, so at WM he turned face after the Rock match.

 

2. Nash was injury prone, having shoulder surgery and also the notorious leg injury on Raw.

 

3. Hall went back to his usual drunken ways and got released soon after WM.

 

After this they tried to add some guys to the NWO (Booker, Michaels, Big Show, I think even X Pac) but I swear no one cared about this. It didn't help when you had Flair book Austin/Bradshaw vs. various NWO members EVERY WEEK after the initial roster split. After a certain point Vince came out, gave his speech about Ruthless Aggression, said fans were sick of the NWO, and just killed them off.

 

If anyone has anything to add, by all means do so.

[CBright7831 0]

Most of the summer (and part of the fall) of 2002 is a blur to me.

 

I'm glad I missed the Katie Vick angle, even though I read about it, and thought it was embarrassing.

 

I would have liked to have seen TSM's reaction to all of that shit.

[BorneAgain 0]

Raw post August in 2002 more or less completely sucked anyway. There were about 5 guys that more or less carried the show (Booker, Goldust, Jericho, RVD, and Christian), as everything else was just either a Triple H ego fest, sheer crap (3 Minute Warning, Katie Vick, the UnAmericans) or things they simply gave up on (Singles pushes for Rico, Bubba Ray, and Hurricane.)