Anyone watch WWF during the attitude era?

WWF was when wrestling was hot man.

WCW vs WWF were the days.

I tried to watch wwe - what the hell ?!

Its like one boring sitcom. Its awful.

The Attitude era had a lot of great characters and more solid storytelling than today's product but much of the content made no sense and the quality of actual wrestling on the weekly television was pretty poor. It's a bit of a misconception that it was all great, based more out of nostalgia for the likes of Rock, Austin etc. and the edgier style.

1998 was the best year for wrestling in my lifetime story arc and character wise, I thought Raw and Nitro had both jumped the shark by mid-99.

Nitro jumped the shark when David Arquette won the goddamn championship.

Hell yes, I loved the Attitude Era. The storytelling and gimmicks were as edgy as they were ridiculous but that's what made the WWF awesome back then because it was entertaining and that is fundamentally what is most important. The general quality of their content were consistently entertaining as well. The amount of 'big-name' matches in the regular Raw events were unreal; you would always see The Rock, Austin, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Undertaker and other top wrestlers in matches OUTSIDE of PPVs. Heck, even the Attitude era mid-carders were far more entertaining than anything the entire WWE roster could string together on any given PPV. I'd rather watch The Dudley Boyz put someone through a table, the Hardys diving off ladders or Too Cool doing their thing than see John Cena bury someone for the umpteenth time.

Those were indeed the golden days and the WWE will never do anything like it again. WWE have long monopolised the professional wrestling industry so they don't need to be innovative or edgy anymore; they just need to make money and all they need to do to make money is to churn out Cena merchandise. I don't even think they make that money off the regular shows or the PPVs bar Wrestlemania anymore but Vince McMahon a.k.a. Montgomery Burns probably doesn't care that much about the quality of the product anymore for several reasons.

I'll also never forget the sheer brilliance of Jim Ross; that man could provide a commentary on grass growing and it would be absolutely entertaining.

JR and King were also essential. Absolutely legends.

Back then, they were definitely the dream team when it came to commentary. It's just a shame that JR was fired for a highly absurd reason and that the King has regressed a lot in his commentating ability since the Ruthless Aggression era. I rarely watch the regular shows but the gulf in quality between commentary now and then is huge, which definitely illustrates the overall gap in quality between PG era WWE and the WWF. Now it's all about plugging the 9.99 WWE Network, calling moves in the most monotone way possible and generally talking about things other than the match.

Although I of course preferred the much more risque Attitude Era and the comparatively underrated Ruthless Aggression era, the problem isn't even the WWE turning PG in itself but rather the current flaws that are the result of the WWE being directed badly since the turn. Now, the WWE hierarchy are so fixated on having the creative team decide everything rather than let the wrestlers have the level of creative input that made the preceding eras so entertaining. As a result, we have poorly directed feuds, mostly bland gimmicks and promos that range from forgettable to absolutely corny.

Maybe if someone like Paul Heyman was running things, we'd get what we want (!) but the WWE will remain Vince's product until he dies and then Triple H will take over. NXT is actually a decent product but I still have reservations as to whether Triple H will improve the main shows once he eventually gets full control.