D Von Dudley on why the Attitude Era would not work today
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- Professional wrestler D-Von Dudley talks about being involved in WWE's Attitude Era and why that content of programming would not work in modern times.
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D-Lo Brown is a prime example of how everyone was over during the Attitude Era.. He was always just a mid card wrestler... But when his music hit and he walked out tot the ring bobbing his head and carrying that European Title, it was very little difference between the pop he got and one of the top tier guys like Undertaker or The Rock.. Man it was a great time to be a pro wrestling fan.
And the Godfather
@@stuarthoetker7179 Yes indeed..
and Chris Jericho
In the Attitude Era, "D'VON!.....GET THE TABLES!!" Got more of a pop at the "D'VON" than the last 10 years of WWE Cringe got or deserves in total.
D-Von is so right. Everybody was over. It wasn't just the franchise players on the covers of your video games. You had your franchise players in Austin, Rock, Undertaker, Triple H, Kane , Angle, and Mick Foley. Then you had upper midcarders like Jericho, Edge, RVD, Benoit, Eddie and Booker were being groomed to be main eventers. Tag team wrestling peaked in the year 2000. The Dudleyz, Hardyz, E&C, APA, even lower level teams like Too Cool were extremely over. You had your midcard guys like Goldust, Godfather, Regal, and Val Venis in the IC Title and/or European picture were extremely over. A step down from there you had your hardcore guys like Blackman, Bossman, Crash Holly and Al Snow who were over. Lower midcard acts like Gangrel or D'Lo Brown who wrestled on Heat and Shotgun Saturnight were over. All the way down to Kaientai and the light heavyweight title. WWE has never had a period like that before or since. Sure there was some garbage. Mae Young's hand, naked Mideon, etc but 8 million people tuned in every week and this lasted for 4 years. There was never a dull moment even when it was bad TV.
Well putted
Putting Kane in the upper tier and not Jericho is hilarious
@@Redhotshawntexas I want you to quit being a nitpicking, insufferable contrarian for a minute and listen carefully. Jericho came to WWE as a cruiserweight and did not advance beyond the IC Title until December 2001. At the very end of the Attitude Era. Whereas Kane won the WWE Title 6 months into the Attitude Era. So objectively Chris Jericho was only an upper mid carder during the Attitude Era who was, exactly as I stated, being groomed for main event status which he reached in 2002 and continued through the Ruthless Aggression era. At that time he was objectively in that B+ player category with Edge, Benoit, Eddie, RVD, and Booker T. These guys were NOT on the level of a Austin, Rock, Undertaker, Triple H, Angle, Foley, or Kane. These guys were your franchise players from 1997 to 2001. There's no disrespect intended to Jericho or any of the others I named. These guys became main event, A players during the ruthless aggression era and were the top guys from 2002-2007. So go back to r/squaredcircle where you can ignore a well thought out Attitude Era appreciation post and be disagreeable because your feels are hurt by the placement of one wrestler.
Well said
@@crispycruiser4654 who’s the one with their feelings hurt? You wrote an essay, mark. And you’re still wrong.
That is when wrestling was at it best the art of storytelling was just insane it still had some mystery to it but now it's no detail no more mystery
Wrestling died in the early 90's.
I agree. That's when wrestling turned into a soap opera. We wanted to see action, not storytelling.
In the Attitude Era, if not everyone almost everyone had a chance to be in the spotlight and was used. Storylines and factions were entertaining. In my opinion the greatest time in Wrestling history and to be a fan.
I'll disagree. That's when they turned wrestling into a soap opera. When I was younger I wanted to see action. Too much talking in the "attitude era".
@@Zippadeedoodaa-nt8om To each his own.
Society today couldn’t handle the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression era today.
i feel like one day theyre gonna learn to with the way HHH is taking wwe right now, especially with the liv morgan/dominik storyline right now
@@wildwesternaustralian4357 I think that what he's alluding to is society outside of wrestling circles, what made the Attitude Era work was that it fit the culture and mainstream society at the time. Wrestling will never be able to do that again, especially since there aren't millions of former wrestling fans that they could bring back like they did in the 90's with fans who left after the 1980's.
@@josephmelendez8370 either way i still cant help but think whats happened with society and the entertainment industry as a whole was just downright needless. AND easily avoidable
I disagree. I think now it could be done with someone like Moxley to kick it off. Look at all the shit talking that goes on in ufc, the fans eat it up. A lot of fans have stopped watching since that era. Myself included. If I heard a new wrestler was out on the mic talking shit like rock/stone cold/Jericho etc. Add in a few new American badass type personas I would start watching again. 100%. They just need to stop writing scripts and let the wrestlers get themselves over. There's a reason why that era is almost unanimously everyone's favorite.
@@devinstucky6948 he's referring more to the actual storylines because ever since Vince left they have let the wrestlers talk more freely, especially whoever the Rock decides to work with, they usually get more free reign since nobody is going to tell The Rock that he and whoever is working with him that they can't say certain things. That's why they took the Netflix deal so that they can let loose creatively.
I think to today's wwe is way too political they release guys when they start getting over but D-von is right everybody in the attitude era was over from top to bottom i miss those days.
It wouldn't work bc kids these days hate metal music (which suits wrestling anyway) everyone is offended and sexism
I believe D-Von Dudley not just because he was apart of WWE during the Attitude Era and would actually know, but also because Triple H isn't doing that. He's trying but failing and if you don't believe me look at The Final Testament, JD McDonagh, Carmelo Hayes, Unholy Union, Shayna Baszler, and B-Fab. All of them could be doing more and yet all Triple H wants to do is focus on The Bloodline, Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, CM Punk, Judgment Day (except JDM), Ivar, Bronson Reed, etc and while he does have a good reasons there are still the people I mentioned and more who don't get any time on TV, and when they do it's either in the background of something more important or to job against one of his favorites. And it's honestly not that hard to come up with something for them to do, especially if they come to him with multiple ideas for Triple H to brainstorm off of.
HHH is deliberately trying to tank the company.
Everyone had a role. It all worked.
The Attitude Era didn't have any fat on it. Every one from the bottom to the top had a program they were working and they had beefs they had feuds. You had your prime steak with Austin and the Rock, you had your fast food gang warfare with The Nation, DX, DOA, Los Boricuas, you had comedy candy with the Oddities and Kaientai, dirty humor with Val Venis, horror with The Undertaker and Kane and then the Ministry. Then you'd turn around and get a home made meal with the wholesomeness of Mick Foley achieving his dream. Storylines didn't over stay their welcome and everyone there seemed to matter.
And yet, it was sports entertainment, not wrestling.
Too many crybabies today, sad but true
Cancel culture is an issue nowadays.
@jamesjohnston4160 - Cancel culture has been around for decades. The level of censorship back in the 1950s was way worse than today. If people even hinted an assumption that you may be a communist back then, you got completely blacklisted from everything. It was way worse decades ago.
@@jamesjohnston4160 wrong
@@eaglesandowls wrong
@@eaglesandowlswrong
I love how the Dudleys were the proto-typical Nerds with muscles. Possibly inspired by Revenge of the Nerds. Gotta say, awesome gimmick! Those 2 were awesome! Understatement
This is the estrogen fortnite era. The fade haircuts and plastic toy looking outfits era. The whack names / move set era. I stopped watching wrestling way back when I first heard the name : Dolph Ziggler 😂 that name did it for me. i think Cody Rhodes was just starting and Dominik was still a kid. We need a new attitude type era called "We've all had trauma lets kill each other" era
Nic Nemeth didn't deserve that stray lol. But yeah, WWE writers basically had to be herded like cattle to come up with a good name since Vince started, even back in the Attitude Era, to want to hire more movie and tv guys than wrestling guys. I remember Steve Austin talking about the stupid temperature names they tried coming up with before settling on Stone Cold, since they were too dense to realize the name wasn't supposed to be about him being chilly.
@@Steven-cf1ty The name "Nick Nemeth" is cooler than "Dolph Ziggler".
"Nemesis" Nick Nemeth? COME ON!
"Nightmare" Nick Nemeth. Both sound way cooler.
Not getting in trouble? Back then, wrestling was on the news every day, under attack by the media. They had people picketing AT THE SHOWS! The bigger difference is that they didn't CARE if people complained, because the money was so good it didn't matter. And because WWE wasn't publicly traded so they didn't have to appeal to the stockholders. AND because Vince had very recently (at that time) almost been driven out of business, so he knew he had to take risks. I could actually go on with other factors that played into the perfect storm that led to the Attitude Era's success, but no, it's not the whole "everybody's sensitive" scapegoat/boogeyman.
The difference is that, back then they weren't taken off the air even if some people complained. Now they would be shut down in every major platform and lose funding.
@mmestari - That happened to some people even decades ago. Back in our grandparents youth era. People think cancel culture is recent...no....it's been around.
@@greencm7142 Yes, it has happened many times in history. And the same groups of people who have been victims of it in the past, can be the ones who are doing it at some point later.
D von is right people are too sensitive that even saying something or doing something over the top people will not look at it as just entertainment
Woke Womens Entertainment cares more about pushing girls wrestling and selling Applebees commercials than actually entertaining us and gen z thinks this modern crap is good, which is sad enough
Attitude Era with women treated like they are today would be awesome.
@@RAD1111ableNo it wouldn’t, it would be boring just like every other genre of entertainment nowadays
Do women scare you?
@@RAD1111able no. stacy keibler vs steph in a bra and panties match is >>> anything in today's women's wrestling.
So happy to have been able to say I was at attitude era matches and was a fan during the golden age of wrestling. Especially during the Monday night wars. Good I miss it. When the rock and SCSA had that match at wrestlemania and I knew it was Austin‘s last match that’s when I stopped watching religiously.
This is a softer generation that’s why it won’t work today
It takes a man to take responsibility and work. Its something that's taught by example.
I think it was also the unknown aspect of the show. Everyone obviously knew it was fake, but I mean you had next to no idea what was going to happen in the coming weeks, storylines affected by the injury of a wrestler could go on without their recovery being read all about online without really searching forums (as opposed to now where we’re told everything). I only see things on TH-cam now but the last time I watched regularly was 2020 and I stopped because everything had become so….trying to be real but also trying too hard to have memorable story moments said by stars with little personality compared to those in the 90s - I think only guys like CM Punk and Mr Kennedy would’ve fit in in 90s WWE - goodie goodie Cena sure wouldn’t have.
What made the Attitude Era great wasn't the language, wasn't the violence, and wasn't the sexual content. What made it great was the writing. The fact that the wrestlers were allowed to be themselves and not stick to a strict script. The twists and turns, the cliffhangers, the fact that you HAD to tune in next week to see what would happen. The unpredictability. The larger-than-life feel. The memorable moments. The electric atmosphere. That could absolutely be done today, but they don't want to. Like everything else, wrestling has become mediocre. Bland and predictable is the order of the day. Just look at popular music. Popular movies. Popular tv shows. It's all mediocre. No effort is put into anything anymore. And most people just accept that and shell out their money for it. Nobody is demanding more because they've all been dulled to the point of unconsciousness.
The Attitude era wouldn't work now because you can't be sexist these days.
That and making fun if trans ppl w/o showing *some* humanity, like I wrote below, Dave Chappelle could've done trans jokes if it wasn't 3 hours and 3 specials worth, sounding like a manifesto
@@topcatmatt Everyone should make fun of the trans cult.
Feminist can be sexist today by hating men.
Even some random words could spark some outcry from anonymous snowflakes
Even some normal words could trigger outcry from some anonymous snowflakes these days
WWE modern marks are too politically correct and cancel culture is big nowadays to make an attitude era
Too much social media
Especially with Mae Young going through the table, Regal kissing VInce's arse for real etc etc Shame there are too many sensitive souls these days.
WWE has begun a NEW attitude era. They've even come outta and said when they go to Netflix, they'll be uncensored and have edgier content.
We will see.
I think Shawn is doing a great job making NXT give off some attitude era vibes
I don’t have a problem with NXT but where the heck does it have attitude era vibes?
NXT is childish and phony. Nothing like the AE.
Not to mention that the divas were mostly seen as eye candy feminist would freak if they had bikini contest and bra and pantie matches
There's too many people like YOU. Why should you care who freaks out or anything. During attitude Era, many karen mothers were freaking out, but they just ignored them cause who fn cares. It's people like you who keep caring about who's freaking out n shit, just stfu and quit caring.
It DEFINITELY Would. TV is raunchier NOW More Than Ever.
Right to Censor won at the end of the dau
Say that. Senitive folks
Taka v triple h taka was over as f
Even the refs were over back then😂
it's exactly what i've been saying when these youtubers kept trying to push this notion of "the attitude era return" it's not attitude era and it can't return because of this soft ass entitled sensitive cancel culture crybabies that's online. i'm glad someone shared the same sentiment that i said not that long ago.
Being woke wasn’t a thing back then.
Meanwhile in AEW, No One is over.
It isnt being 'sensitive', although the bra n panties horseshit would not fly bc of sexism (and it should not have went then, tbh)
No , for the same reason you cant do Blazing Saddles again- its been *DONE* .
BUT , you could still rail against a corporation that doesnt care for its workers, but WWE would have to bring up unions and stuff, lol, and mecha McMahon doesnt want that.
Stone Cold and the Rock, if uncensored, could still run.
Hes saying you couldnt do Golddust bc its gay stereotypes. Look at Effy. Hes saying a bunch of reactionary horseshit about how people dont laugh at offensive jokes. They v much do, but it would be weird if you railed on, lets say -black people- for 20 minutes on screen, or if black ppl werent allowed to be part of the joke or not just the butt of it. Or else it would be weird.
It wasnt Chappelle doing trans jokes. It was that they were all directed at making a mockery of trans ppl without theur real input or the things that make them laugh at themselves. It also is 3 soecials *in a row* of the shit, it makes you stop feeling they are jokes and are instead a fucken manifesto.
But go on, about how "no one can take a joke anymore", about as fucken useless a sentiment, as much BULLSHIT, as "no one wants to work anymore."
Poor little lefty.
@@BishopWalters12it’s a soft generation that’s why it won’t work
@@BishopWalters12u weren’t around back then and if you were you wouldn’t last
@@MichaelOBrien71LOL, you're saying I wasn't there on one hand and on the other hand, you're saying I was there, and I wouldn't last but I'm here, buttercup.
@@BishopWalters12 I ❤️ u buttercup 🥰🤣🤣
It wouldn’t work today because of the WOKE movement (something I could care less about)!
Is the woke in the room with you now?
You couldn't care less about it but here you are writing about it.
Also, explain exactly what is "woke"? Do you have any clue? Or are you simply copying and pasting a buzz word you read on the Internet in an attempt to sound edgy?
He’s right everyone was over from Austin to the Oddities
The Attitude Era is like origional Star Wars. Nothing like it before or since and wrestling will NEVER be that good again. Havent watched in over a decade.
Exactly, everyone on the show was good enough to Main Event
The Dudleys came in at the time when the WWE started to go up and up and up and WCW started to go down and down and down. TLC was one of the greatest ideas ever created. Great interview 👍👍
created??? lol, it was straight up stolen from ECW, just like Austin gimmick. Matter of fact the whole attitude era was just stolen from ECW
@@floggyWM1 So WWE just did it better
@@weswith360s i dont know about that, WWE was more popular and had more money. ECW was better in every way tho. WWE wasnt competing with ECW though, they were competing with WCW, ECW were too small for them,
@weswith360s no ecw was better than the wwe attitude era.
TLC is trash. The fanboys cheer for furniture. That isn't wrestling.
Disagree with this. The attitude era worked because of Steve Austin beating up his boss every week & saying screw the rules I don't want to wear a suit & tie. It worked because the Rock would go around calling everyone a roody poo candy ass & DX were telling everyone to suck it when TV had been relatively clean before this. If you notice, TV has gone back to the boring bland safe space again where they don't want to try anything new. Back in the 90s corporate culture was wearing a suit, having a clean haircut & saying the right things. Now it's dying your hair a funny colour & saying the right things, all they need is the right character to break the mold and the willingness to do it. People forget very easily how often everyone tried to cancel the WWE in the 90s because of their content back then yet they're still here because more people loved it than bashed it. There's always been outrage it's just that with social media we see it a lot more often as opposed to in your morning paper or the evening news once or twice a day. Sadly it will never happen because WWE isn't desperate and fighting to stay relevant like it was in the 90s because of WCW, it's just another corporate entity like Disney & Warner Bros churning out 'content'.
Same w music, just individual acts w no band or no rock, just pop n some hip hop amd hick hop, all dance or hip hop infused garbage all sounds the same bc Clear Channel amd I heart radio
You just described pop culture in general. This generation lacks a Nirvana, a Tarantino, an ECW to stir up the status quo. Everybody is trying to hard to be something else, and not themselves. The 90s was when individuality shone.
Never a truer comment made, my friend.
@@DigitalBath742 corporate consolidation was made a bipartisan effort by the Clintonite 90's.
The only difference is politics is the culture wars, for policy and economics will stay the same bc those r corporate interests. Corporations want less reactionary conservative shit bc they want to sell to more ppl. That's why corps are LGBT friendly. Not bc they care, but bc that's another 5-7% of the populace to sell to
@@DigitalBath742 that's why u won't really get an ECW, they will be bought before then
dvon is so right in everything he said there, how we got to this point in terms of social acceptance is unreal. I am glad I was born around attitude era and I feel pity and sadness to this current generations who trample on every foundation that we laid down during that time.
The times were definitely different and will never be seen again
It's that the Show itself was "Over" WcW Nitro too...every segment was a banger
Saying Attitude Era wouldnt work today, is like saying Heavy Metal or Punk rock wouldn't work today.. which is fn idiotic. Some people just dont have imagination for creative and so all they know is to go with the "It wont work" mentality
I miss those days any and everyone got a chance it’s guys sitting in the back today that have so much talent but can’t get the opportunity
well the WWE has tons of sponsors and doesn't want to lose not even one of them
So on point!
Ja nowadays in a videogame no one would choose a jd mc donalds or damian priest or what not. Choose a smackdown hctp and everyone there is a character
People always look at the past with rose-tinted glasses. I was a teenager during the attitude era and though it had its highs, there were a lot of terrible gimmicks as well. Wrestling also wasnt as good as it is now, though the best promos arguably came from the attitude era wrestlers.
That's because wrestling itself doesn't sell, and hasn't since the early 80's, AEW is proof of this. The in-ring stuff only matters if the story outside of the ring is good enough to get people to buy into the match. That's one thing that the 90's did that wrestling hasn't done since is get even the casual viewers to buy in, even if it had it's bad, the good was so much better than anything we've had since that nobody even remembers the bad.
@@josephmelendez8370 good wrestling does sell, it's the reason why so many indie wrestlers got noticed by the WWE, wrestlers like Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, and AJ Styles. It's also a reason why NJPW is big in Japan, when they were led by Kenny Omega, Shinsuke, Okada, etc. Is it mainstream? Maybe not. But I've always believed that professional wrestling has to be a combination of great wrestling and promos. The goats of wrestling for me were wrestlers who were great at promos and wrestling, like Taker, Angle, Jericho, HHH, Austin, Flair. Those are what people remember with such nostalgia from the attitude era, but they were arguably the greatest wrestlers in history, not a product of their time
@@memonomoto7419 you just proved my point with the second half of what you just said, wrestling isn't what sells, it's the stars that sell, and if people aren't invested in them they're not going to care about the match enough to watch it. With respect to all of the guys that you named, none of them drew fans in from outside of the wrestling world. I'm talking about guys who can bring in casual viewers, like we saw in the 90's, casual viewers don't care about technical matches, as long as they are invested in the stars and the match itself isn't obviously trash, then they don't care.
@@memonomoto7419 by the way Japan as a culture treats wrestling like a sport, comparing New Japan to North American promotions is a bad comparison. As for the stars that you named, yes they were immensely talented, but they also were in touch with the times, that's what made the Attitude Era so great was that they had great talent carrying storylines that fit very well into the 90's counter culture.
@@memonomoto7419HHH was boring in the ring and lame on the mic. Abysmal example
It definitely would work. IDk what devon is talking about