– Edge & Christian Talk About The WWF Hardcore Division & How Every Wrestler During The Attitude Era Had A Character & Role
During an edition of Edge & Christian’s “E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness” podcast, the former WWF Tag Team Champions talked about the WWF Hardcore Division, Attitude Era wrestlers having a character & role, and more.
Below are the highlights:
Edge: One of the biggest things from that you mentioned is signs. I mean signs were everywhere. Everyone brought a sign. To the point where if I were in the audience it probably would have been pretty annoying but it made for great TV. And I think back to that time, you know, late 90s and and again we’ll get into when it ended, but you think about back then.
Okay, Jerry Springer was huge where you just didn’t know what was gonna happen, there were no real rules or parameters, it seemed. And that was especially in the Attitude Era. I think once DX kind of kicked open the door of the se*ual floodgates and then you have Sable with hands painted on her breasts and kind of the objectification of women if you look back on it.
But at that time that was kind of the climate, but it really gave a lot of opportunity for talent. Because, like yes, there was the glut of huge talent at the top of the show that got the Attitude Era really exploding. You think about that roster that’s at the top of the card after Shawn retires and after Bret goes to WCW, but then you talked about how the New Age Outlaws and all of these guys started creating these personas and one of the things.
I will say that I always found about the Attitude Era was that everyone had some form of time or some form of character and it might be three minutes, but in that three minutes they would cram in as much as they could. Whether it was Crash Holly with the Hardcore Title. I remember how Crash Holly would come out and place would go nuts.
Christian: Like you said everybody on the show had, whether it was character based or storyline based, had something going on and the cool thing about that hardcore division was you could put 15-20 people, guys and girls, in that division. You could fit so many character.
It was entertaining like when they would go to the airport and somebody would pin Crash Holly and somebody would pin that person and Crash ran up rolling that person up at the end and then go down the the luggage chute. Like that was just…. that off-site stuff… like that really gave the feel.
It was a 24/7 Championship. It wasn’t just stuff that was happening at the arena. You really could, as long as you had a referee with you, win this title anywhere. They were doing that stuff and I thought that gave it a little different feel than what you see nowadays. You don’t see a lot of that stuff happen anymore.
Like they did this about a month back on SmackDown. They did a fight where Owens and Shane McMahon fought back through the kind of the concession area in the hallways which we haven’t seen in a while, but used to see quite a bit of that stuff. And even like that off-site things happening not even near the arena like when Austin threw the Title off into the water or stuff like that.
Edge: I get it. I get why you don’t see it as much because it became and this will again talk about why it kind of ended and when it ended but you do that too much and then you’ve seen it. And then what do you do? So I get why the rains got pulled back because there’s only so much and there’s only so many times that you can see… you know… the beer truck driven in or the Zamboni.
Eventually you’re gonna run out of vehicles to drive in. Eventually you’re gonna see eight matches in eight weeks spill out into the stands and everything and then suddenly it just doesn’t mean much anymore. And now it meant something when Shane & Owens did it.
Christian: Then you do that every week and then how do you get the interest back in the ring when they’ve already seen it in multiple times in multiple situations. You’re right on it in that sense.
Edge: And that was one of my knocks consistently over the years on the Attitude Era was that – yeah, the ratings were huge, but it was a lot entertaining, a lot to do with the entertainment, the shock value.
Now as a performer, I would get frustrated because they would go “okay, well you got five minutes”. Well after entrances, you’re looking at you know 2-2.5 minutes so it started to feel like “oh, what we’re doing in here really doesn’t matter”. And that kind of sucks because that’s why I got into it.
That’s who I wanted to be able to tell a story in the ring and have the backstage stuff and everything… you know…. help strengthen that. But what you really want to sit down with your stake is the match and everything else is just the fixings.
– Goldberg’s Possible WWE Return Date
According to the Dirty Sheets podcast, WWE officials are in talks with WCW Legend and former WWE Universal Champion Bill Goldberg for a return to WWE programming and a possible Hall of Fame induction during the WrestleMania 34 weekend.
Current talks are for him to return on Raw’s 25th anniversary episode, which airs on January 22nd and will also feature The Undertaker’s first appearance on WWE programming since his WrestleMania 33 loss to Roman Reigns.
Below is what WWE posted about the 25th anniversary episode of Raw:
The 25th anniversary of Monday Night Raw will emanate from Barclays Center and Manhattan Center on Jan. 22
“The 25th anniversary of Monday Night Raw will emanate from Barclays Center and Manhattan Center in New York City on Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, and air live on USA Network at 8/7 C. Tickets are available for each event starting this Friday, Nov. 3, through all Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.com or by calling.
Superstars from both Monday Night Raw and SmackDown LIVE will be at Barclays Center, while the event at Manhattan Center, the site of the first episode of Raw, will feature both WWE Superstars competing, plus special appearances by WWE Legends Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash, among others. VIP packages, including a meet and greet with a WWE Legend, will be available for fans at Manhattan Center.
The Undertaker to return on Raw’s 25th anniversary in 2018
What unforgettable moments will happen as the longest-running weekly episodic program in U.S. primetime television history celebrates its 25th anniversary from two separate locations? Find out on Jan. 22, either in person or on the home of Monday Night Raw, USA Network!”
You can watch the entire first episode of WWF Monday Night Raw (which was main evented by The Undertaker) below:
