Would an Old School Raw have worked during the Attitude Era using Wrestlers from the 80's?

[Johnnyreggae]

Back in 2010 WWE held the first Raw special simply known as Old school, the show featured legends from yesteryear making special appearances throughout the show.

The shows featured the classic WWF scratch logo or older block logo, vintage, retro-style graphics, and a smaller, nostalgic entrance set.

The Piper's Pit returned and legends interacted with the current roster.

Now the question I ask is could an old school Raw have worked during the Attitude Era using such legends from the 70s or 80s

I know a few were probably still working and a few weren't on good terms and occasionally the odd legend may have appeared but could a 2 hour raw have worked with guys like bad news brown, akeem maybe hercules, Don muroco or even an Out Back Jack? 

[SuperBacon]

Doesn't answer the question, but an Attitude Era Bad News Brown would've been fantastic. 

[AshC]

Don't believe so, no. Only real comparison I can think of is something like JYD popping into ECW. 

Irecall it feeling really unusual for them to be doing that Gimmick Battle Royal at WrestleMania 17, they barely looked back before that in that time.

Perhaps an underemphasised part of the whole 'the Attitude Era ended with WrestleMania 17' theory. 

I feel if they did bring back Akeem and whoever in 1998-99, it'd be as Austin cannon fodder. 

Loved the Gimmick Battle Royal, incidentally.

But it did seem out of character with what they did in that period. 

Edited May 11 by AshC

[Chico Torres]

Time moves differently these days if you look at WWF in 5 year segments.

Between 1980 and 1985 you go from Backlund-led north east promotion to MTV and rock n wrestling and Hogan and Wrestlemania. Then 1985 to 1990 is also a massive change, the WWF is fully formed with the gimmicks and tv shows and presentation. Similarly 1990 to 1995 where the new generation and style is very clearly completely changed form the excess and then 1995 to 2000 it’s transformed once again with the attitude era.

After that time slows down, 2000 to 2005 to 2010 to 2015 etc to today, the changes have been a lot more minor and incremental, like the attitude era was the end of WWF history and since then it’s largely been a straight line. Some people hang around forever whereas the most memorable characters from the height of proper WWF were actually only around for 5 years or so.

So some sort of rambling non-answer to say that our perception of old school appears to end around the attitude era. When they did the gimmick battle royal it was people who weren’t around that long previously, most less than 10 years earlier but it seemed completely changed whereas now…it just doesn’t.

Edited May 11 by Chico Torres

[BomberPat]

I don't think so at all. As much as there wasn't that much time between them, and it wasn't driven home as much as a selling point as it was in the New Generation days, a big part of the Attitude Era's appeal was that this was wrestling that was hip, matched the cultural zeitgeist, and wasn't the old codgers you could see on the other channel.

If they do something to try and embrace the '80s days of wrestling in the '90s, all it does is raise the spectre of Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Roddy Piper, all of whom are over on the other channel. And if you go back to the 1970s, Bruno Sammartino's not coming on board, and anyone else either popped up from time to time anyway (Ernie Ladd, Lou Albano, Freddie Blassie), or the audience wouldn't have a clue who they were. The only way I could see them leaning into that kind of nostalgia at all - and, again, '80s nostalgia was really not a thing in the late '90s - would be something akin to the Gimmick Battle Royal, but presented far more spitefully, with the commentators openly mocking how shit and old everybody was.

[Carbomb]

Yeh, the cynicism and rejection of the apple-pie schmaltz of the 80s was one of the defining things about 90s culture upon which the Attitude Era was based, so it probably wouldn't have worked. Indeed, in Kurt Angle's initial appearance and subsequent heel run you have a working example of it.

Something else comes to mind: during the vinegar strokes of Attitude, when Hulk Hogan turned face after Mania 18, they gave him the Voodoo Chile entrance music. It made total sense, because there was something almost intangible about the vibe and culture of the time that said Real American just wouldn't have suited him - possibly because, only a few weeks earlier, he'd been coming out to the cool nWo theme. I also remember that, during that era, they'd had joke acts like Mideon and Perry Saturn in his Moppy gimmick coming out on isolated occasions to Real American, presumably as jabs from VKM.

[BomberPat]

20 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Yeh, the cynicism and rejection of the apple-pie schmaltz of the 80s was one of the defining things about 90s culture upon which the Attitude Era was based, so it probably wouldn't have worked. Indeed, in Kurt Angle's initial appearance and subsequent heel run you have a working example of it.

Something else comes to mind: during the vinegar strokes of Attitude, when Hulk Hogan turned face after Mania 18, they gave him the Voodoo Chile entrance music. It made total sense, because there was something almost intangible about the vibe and culture of the time that said Real American just wouldn't have suited him - possibly because, only a few weeks earlier, he'd been coming out to the cool nWo theme. I also remember that, during that era, they'd had joke acts like Mideon and Perry Saturn in his Moppy gimmick coming out on isolated occasions to Real American, presumably as jabs from VKM.

Patterson and Brisco used to come out to Real American during the Attitude Era! Big Show was "The Showster" and entered to it during his shit impressions gimmick in 2000. It was absolutely presented as hokey old rubbish, and I think Hogan's 2002 run is when the tide turned and they started to realise that actually there was money to be made from the nostalgia angle.

I generally go with Wrestlemania 2001 as the end of Attitude, and the next year or so as them trying to recapture some of the magic but not realising that time has moved on, but I think you can actually make a case for 9/11 as when the mentality that underpinned Attitude ended - unironic gung-ho patriotism and flag-waving suddenly came back in a big way, and American culture was back to being about goodies and baddies again.

[TheScarlettChad]

The past was hokey and rubbish to them until around 2002. Hogan only used Voodoo Child for half a year then went back to Real American in 2003. They went full steam ahead with a Hogan push in 2002 because he was nostalgic. 

[BarryOVega]

19 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Doesn't answer the question, but an Attitude Era Bad News Brown would've been fantastic. 

Plus you’ve the bonus of there being no chance of Hunter having the bollocks to call him a monkey or whatever 

[Roy]

18 hours ago, Johnnyreggae said:

Now the question I ask is could an old school Raw have worked during the Attitude Era using such legends from the 70s or 80s

 

I don't think people were particularly nostalgic for the 70s during the attitude era. The 80s perhaps, but the landscape was not conducive to it happening when so many big stars were spread across WCW and WWF. The only time I think it could have worked would have been in 2001/2002 but the WWE roster was already bloated enough as it was.

[AshC]

Might one argue then this was actually the third time Hogan was the central in-ring figure in changing the top end of the industry, after the obvious 1984 and 1996?

Even though his run on top again was relatively short, it kind of opened the door to looking back. Though there were hints of it before (am thinking that 'Lonely Road of Faith' video). 

That period from WM17 to WM18 is like a transitional year, bridging the gap between the Attitude Era and the Ruthless Aggression/brand split. With the ECWCW stuff a bit of an anomaly.

[SaitoRyo]

I think the Attitude Era audience would have completely rejected a show featuring 70s or 80s wrestlers.

They were there to see Sable get her arse out, Austin give someone a Stunner then drink beer and DX tell people to suck it. They were in no mood for Outback Jack versus Hercules. Plus, many of the half-decent wrestlers who could have been used for it were contracted to WCW during the Attitude Era.

You bringing this idea up did remind of the excellent Attitude Era Legends promo, mind. The one that supposedly made Vince McMahon cry like a baby when he saw it.

 

[BomberPat]

thinking about it more, you only have to look at how older wrestlers were treated in the Attitude Era in general:

- The Legion of Doom were barely in their 40s, if that, yet got treated as absolute relics of a previous age
- The Blue Blazer gimmick was inherently a parody of the 1980s pure babyface schtick
- Patterson and Brisco, proper stars of the late '70s into the '80s, were comedy old men
- The Rock N Roll Express, and the NWA in general, were worse than an afterthought and, like LOD, generally treated as something to be ridiculed
- Sgt Slaughter was being mocked as an old man by DX (he was about the age John Cena is now)
- Iron Sheik, George Steele, Michael Hayes, Bob Backlund...they were knocking about, but nobody was wanting to see them wrestle
 

The audience didn't give a shit about wrestling history, and it was clear that most of the writers didn't either. Neither group seemed to really care about wrestling full stop.

[LaGoosh]

I feel like most the fans in the Attitude era were new fans who didn't really have much of a connection to the older stuff. But in 2002 onwards to the present day a lot of the people watching were the Attitude era fans who never grew out of it so there's plenty of nostalgia to be mined over and over again.

[AshC]

Yeah I feel there was definitely an influx in 1998, I think the PlayStation games actually played a far bigger role than people acknowledge.