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The Attitude Era Thread Vol 1

I liked the smaller one. It made the champion look bigger and the color tint was kind of in line with the old winged eagle belt.

Just dawned on me that, outside of Gunther right now, no one has looked good with a WWE belt in like 20 years. Eddie might be the closest but that's mostly because no one deserved it more than him rather than how he actually wore it.
 
I never really dug that one but it looked fantastic on certain guys. Like that's always the peak HHH and Rock belt and represents that year where Austin was out, Foley retired, and Angle rose. Winged eagle is my go-to because, with the exception of Flair (who looked straight wrong with it), everyone looked good carrying it.

I remember that specific belt from Raw though getting replaced immediately because it cut Austin's face when he stunned Vince and he complained.
 
Yeah, the blue version was unveiled the night after WM in 1998 and the black strap version (which also had the updated scratch WWF logo) debuted at Survivor Series later that year.
 
Warrior's white strap was nice. White straps never look quite right.

Oval IC title is the worst design for that title. By far.
 
Spring King Kamala said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1638257907123777554
Must have been how they were trying to lure Russo back.
Click to expand...
This pic illustrates exactly why business had such a big downturn. They lost their top two stars out of nowhere and never had a plan for what they'd do if they were gone. There was so much more they could have done with Steve but his body gave up and was done. Lots they could have done with the Rock too. At some point they should have teamed up. You could have printed money if you made them a team.
 
I also think having Show drop the belt so quickly was a poor choice too. Even if they wanted to get to Lesnar-Angle at WM, they should have just had Angle pin someone else in a multi-man match.

1st world title reign for Brock Lesnar ending to maybe the most out of shape version of the Big Show ever was really bad booking.
 
Show winning the title was a mistake. He needed to be rebuilt beyond just wearing pants before even being talked about beating Brock. Brock's booking during that time was fucking strange and out of touch. The match with Show is legit a great big dude match, though. Swap Angle and Brock's road to Wrestlemania (tasted bile typing that btw) and it works a lot more naturally.

I don't think Vince expected Rock to succeed until he knew he could cash in, then he let his contract lapse. 2001, he and Austin could've been against HHH and whoever. 2002, I think looking back that putting Rock and Austin together to run the Outsiders off or letting Jericho's Canadian Horsemen stable get some shine while Hogan dicks around with HHH or Taker or whoever would've helped a ton.
 
You don’t remember the RAW that had a show long storyline of Bubba Ray and Spike Dudley stealing Jericho and Christian’s gym bags and Y2J and Christian spending the show wandering around in towels (until the end when Spike ripped them off to reveal that they were “nude”)? Peaking in hilarity when Bubba Ray revealed Jericho had a jar of ASS CREAM in his bag!

I am genuinely jealous that you were able to forget one of the fullest displays of Vince humor.
 
I don’t think it was a stable. Just a brief alliance. It did lead to Lance Storm technically going over Triple H though.

Edit- I guess I Mandela Effected Lance Storm getting a cheap win over Triple H. Looking at History of WWE, they had a one on one match on a Smackdown in May ‘02 but Trips went over.
 
HHH actually cheated to win that one. He threw the ref into the turnbuckle which crotched Lance and Hunter capialized for the win. I remember this because the forum I was posted on in '02 hated the match and was one of the earliest examples I can remember of the IWC turning on HHH.
 
Outside of his initial return, I don’t remember the majority of the IWC enjoying any of ‘02 face Triple H. It just seemed so preordained that he was going to win the Royal Rumble and then win the World Title at X-8.

I know it’s hard to bring back anyone who had a very public near catastrophic injury back as a heel but if they could have thought of a way to do it, they probably wouldn’t have felt the need to do the stupid nWo angle again. Like they would have definitely eventually brought Hogan, Hall and Nash back (maybe even for X-8) but just not in the same way.
 
Early in the brand extenstion they had Jericho, Storm, Christian, and Test working together. I remember it looking very briefly like they would be on top of Smackdown feuding with Edge and Rey. That very early Rey moment of diving on all them in the cage to close the show. Then everything got shuffled around and despite ending up on Raw together later we just got Jericho doing nothing of note (that Flair feud, man!) and the Un-Americans.
 
I just remember that being the match that had Kane hitting the tacks almost 100% with his ass.
 
Did Shawn know that WrestleMania XIV was going to be his last match for a long long time? I always assumed that was the case so why would he care? Other than him being a pilled out baby.

Triple H verbally buries him hard on that RAW after WrestleMania. Which seems jarring considering how HBK has been praised for most of the past 28 years.
 
I think it was a WM12 situation where they knew he would take an extended hiatus but eventually come back. His personal demons kept that going until 2002.
 
I don't think they even acknowledged how bad his back was until summer, it feels like. Publicly at least.

The throwaway line Foley had before Over The Edge about Austin being stripped of the title and having Dude vs Shawn instead gave me hope he'd be back too.
 
HBK randomly returning to Raw in the summer of '98 to do commentary was weird. I was hyped as hell but when you had Shawn just coming out to sit at the commentary booth, it felt like a harsh tease.
 
And he was great at it too. I wish he'd stuck around
 
Shawn was written off tv in Dec. 98 but is back around Spring 99. I can't even remember how they brought him back and he just sort of disappears until the first Smackdown in September. And then he's gone again.
 
All I remember of HBK in '99 is him randomly showing up in a Foley segment to sign a match (since he was never "stripped" of his commissioner role), and that he refereed a pretty damn good Hayabusa/Gannosuke match in FMW.
 
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