{"id":20356,"date":"2018-06-16T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-16T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=20356"},"modified":"2018-06-14T16:52:59","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T21:52:59","slug":"the-unpopular-opinion-the-attitude-era-part-iii-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/06\/16\/the-unpopular-opinion-the-attitude-era-part-iii-1998\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unpopular Opinion: The Attitude Era Part III: 1998"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a01998 was the year \u201cThe Attitude Era\u201d finally goes into full effect. A sense of change was in the air and a new era is going to take place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Going into WWF\u2019s biggest show of the year, WrestleMania 14, WWF was stepping into the spotlight of the mainstream media. WWF had hired the self-proclaimed \u201cBaddest Man on the Planet,\u201d \u201cIron\u201d Mike Tyson to be the special enforcer for the WWF Championship match between \u201cStone Cold\u201d Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0At the time, WrestleMania 14 was the biggest WrestleMania of all time. Having the \u201cBaddest Man on the Planet\u201d Mike Tyson face to face with the anti-authority, loose cannon \u201cStone Cold\u201d made Monday Night Raw became must see television.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cStone Cold\u201d eventually beat Shawn Michaels and won the WWF Championship at WrestleMania 14, ushering in a new era and becoming the top guy of the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cStone Cold\u201d went on to face all challengers and feud with the Chairman of WWF\/E, Vince McMahon. Cementing himself as the top wrestler of the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"DX\u00a0 \u00a0However, would \u201cStone Cold\u201d be who he became without getting fired from WCW in 1994? Would he have become \u201cStone Cold\u201d without going to ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling)?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This is said because when Steve Austin first came to the WWF in 1996, he came in as \u201cThe RingMaster.\u201d Steve Austin at the time was one of the best wrestlers in the world and was fully able to tell his story in the ring and vocally. Yet, the WWF regressed and knocked Steve Austin down a level.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0There is no doubting the impact \u201cStone Cold\u201d had on professional wrestling business. He was the anti-hero of the WWF and led the charge against WCW during the Monday Night War.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0With that charge, came support from the new stars that was on the horizon. Triple H is on his own now leading DX after Shawn Michaels \u201cretired\u201d from professional wrestling. Triple H was able form a stronger DX bringing in Road Dogg, Billy Gunn and X-Pac. Triple H was able to make himself prevalent and a main event star.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Another star on the rise came \u201cThe Rock.\u201d Formally Rocky Maivia, \u201cThe Rock\u201d was a third-generation superstar who truly found who he wanted to be during this era. \u201cThe Rock\u201d went from being a smiling, good guy, ordinary wrestler to becoming \u201cThe Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a01998 became a year where new stars became prevalent. Storylines and rivalries became more controversial and outlandish. Wrestler\u2019s character personas became more complex.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The\u00a0 \u00a0However, are making the portrayal of these types of storylines too unrealistic? Understanding that the WWF is built off of sports entertainment, the company at this time was trying to be more relatable with the common audience. However, are the stories too outlandish? Like kidnapping, holding someone hostage and threatening to shoot someone?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0WWF\/E states do not try this at home during their broadcasts. When, you have characters that resemble closely to who the audience is trying to connect to, they will feel that they can do exactly what they do on television.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0During the 1998 year, there were rivalries and storylines that created some of the best matches in the year. However during the year, most of those rivalries connected in some form to the rivalry between Vince McMahon and \u201cStone Cold\u201d Steve Austin. Having an active full time wrestler feuding with a non-wrestler defeats the purpose of wrestling. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Yes, Vince\u2019s character hired henchmen to have matches with \u201cStone Cold.\u201d However if Vince is the boss, why not fire \u201cStone Cold?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Wrestling should not be something that should be thought of too much. However, logic holes became clear when going back watching episodes of Monday Night Raw and old pay-per-views.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Jacobus<\/strong>
\nIntern<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a01998 was the year \u201cThe Attitude Era\u201d finally goes into full effect. A sense of change was in the air and a new era is going to take place. \u00a0 \u00a0Going into WWF\u2019s biggest show of the year, WrestleMania 14, WWF was stepping into the spotlight of the mainstream media. WWF had hired the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":20359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2104,2109,3,2138],"tags":[2617,1384,2645,2627,772,2173,2642],"class_list":["post-20356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","category-wrestling","tag-david-jacobus","tag-opinion","tag-the-attitude-era","tag-unpopular-opinion","tag-wrestling","tag-wwe","tag-wwf"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tyson-Austin.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5ik","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20360,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20356\/revisions\/20360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}