It’s finally happened -WWE have stopped their nostalgia obsessed content and are actually providing stuff for us Ruthless Aggression children.
Yes, I am a child of this era so, for me, THIS is nostalgia. I completely missed the Attitude Era, having started watching in ’02, and having been crying out for some form of original, documentary style content on the Network. However, it won’t all be ‘entirely factual’. So sit back and read through five things that WWE certainly won’t be going into during the Ruthless Aggression docu-series.
Right, we’ll get this one out of the way first. Chris Benoit was one of the biggest stars of the Ruthless Aggression era. One of the best wrestlers in the company, multiple mid-card title wins, a Royal Rumble win from the No.2 position, winning the world title in the main event of WrestleMania against two of the biggest faces in company history AND shared one of the greatest Mania moments ever with Eddie Guerrero.
However, we all know why they can’t speak about him or mention his accomplishments. It’s of course sad that we can’t have that history discussed but is entirely understandable from a PR point of view.
This bit has already happened as I write this!
Basically; in May 2002, the World Wrestling Federation become World Wrestling Entertainment. For those who can be bothered to literally spend…three seconds researching, it’s clear that the World Wide Fund for Nature claimed Vince and his boys had violated an already existing agreement between the two companies and took them to court. As a result, the wrestling company had to change their name.
BUT.
In the first episode of the documentary series, it was just explained away as an almost ‘freshening up’. Ridiculous.
Now a more positive point. One of the main highlights of the Ruthless Aggression era, particularly the first two thirds of it, was Smackdown. If you wanted more outlandish, character driven content; you went to RAW. However, if you wanted a more purely wrestling driven show, Smackdown was your go to. I was a Smackdown kid and a huge reason for this was the so called ‘Smackdown Six‘- Edge, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero.
Those six men stole the show in basically every possible way in almost every match they were put in; either as individuals or as tag teams. The reason they make it into this article however is that I doubt the company will officially acknowledge them as a group. However, I really hope I’m wrong as I’d love to hear the backstage discussions with all involved.
Going from great to not great; hi Triple H, do you want to just run the show for like…years? GO FOR IT.
Triple H is undoubtedly one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, a deserved multi-time world champion and a guarantee headliner of his Hall of Fame class. However, this time period in WWE’s history is not looked back with much happiness. Whether it was Goldberg, Scott Steiner, Booker T, RVD, Kane, Benoit and MANY others; Triple H basically never lost with only a couple of exceptions.
As a result, whatever show he was on very quickly became stale and predictable as nothing could topple him. Of course, it weirdly ended in a perfect way as it finished the coronation of Batista at the top of the card but so many people suffered for it, it wasn’t really worth it.
And talking about Triple H…
This story-line always comes up when discussing the ‘worst things in wrestling’ and for very good reason. October 2002 was not a good month for Triple H, Kane, WWE and WWE fans. If you, somehow, haven’t heard about this storyline, let me summarise for you.
Triple H accused Kane of murdered a woman by the name of Katie Vick on the October 7th episode of RAW. The next week, Kane admits to driving Katie home after a party and, whilst driving back, they hit an animal and swerved off the road. The impact killed Katie immediately and Kane felt awful about it. Now, immediately, that is FAR too real for a wrestling story- never mind one involving an undead demon from hell.
THEN. Triple H comes out and implies that Kane had sex with Katie’s dead body. The next week, Hunter simulated sexual intercourse with a dummy in a coffin during a backstage segment.
It’s just…one of the worst things the company has ever done and, rightly, has been scrubbed from the history books. I’m pretty sure at both men’s HOF speeches, this probably won’t come up…
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