WWF Circa 1999 Was Awful

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WWF Circa 1999 Was Awful



I know already people are getting their pitchforks and starting to start a riot on the comment box, saying how much of an idiot and that I know nothing.


Before you do that, you should go back and watch some of the horrible b-level storylines that Vince Russo produced from working at the move rental store.


The show was tasteless and tawdry, and made wrestlers look like freaks, nut jobs, and weirdos. It was Jerry Springer, which is the most frowned upon show on TV, in wrestling, and I hate it for all its worth.


The show slapped every great wrestler right in the face who paved the way. Think of all the legends like Harely Race, Tommy Rich, Jerry and Jack Briscoe, Dory Funk, Danny Davis, Bill Dundee, and so much more who had to watch what the business became because of some hack job writer, who evidently did not care about the art of pro-wrestling.


Now, I am not saying you cannot be edgy, push the envelop and cuss on TV. I thought Vince Russo was smart to address the idea to Vince McMahon the show needed to be less by the book and more unpredictable.


But when Jim Cornette left the creative staff in 1997 and Ed Ferreira, another worthless good for nothing human came in, they went too far. From the fake deaths to the fake pregnancy angles, where they pretended Terry lost her baby due to D-Lo Brown “making her fall” off the apron to women getting kidnapped and angles directed towards rape all the way to Val Venis getting his privates chopped off.


That’s not wrestling; that’s just sick. Vince Russo and Ed Ferreira are disgusting people who enjoyed making wrestling, which was supposed to be about athletic ability, a circus act. It would've been one thing if their writing was good, but it wasn’t either.


Wow, bravo, they knew how to book Stone Cold Steve Austin. Let’s give them a standing ovation for that one, since it was so hard. What people don’t know, though, is most of the talent you saw main eventing that you like weren’t because of Vince Russo, they were because of Jim Ross.


Without Jim Ross, there would’ve been no Stone Cold in the WWF or no Mankind in the WWF. That must mean Jim Ross was treated like a king in WWF, right. Nope.


They treat him like dirt. They take away his job because they don’t think he’s good looking enough to broadcast, so they put a little annoying broadcaster in with little experience named Michael Cole to take his spot because he fits the spot.


They tried turning him heel on numerous ocassions because they didn't like him; therefore, the fans should hate him too. Of course, the plan backfired on them.


Thank God for Vince McMahon for filtering some of Russo’s ideas. I can’t imagine what WWF could’ve been without that. Well, I could actually watch WCW in 2000 to see that.

But for their sake, TBS were more strict about sex and violence than USA network was. Thus, there were no birth to hand angles, or any other unimaginably tasteless angles that Vince Russo thought of which sold no tickets, but it still had awful writing, something Vince Russo is so great at.


Now you’d think there must be some reason people loved WWF circa 1999 so much. Maybe it was the wrestling...

Wait, nope that was terrible too. They did have some decent-to-very-good talent, such as Stone Cold, Mankind, Owen Hart, Val Venis, Triple H, and so on, but only the really good ones could overcome the awful booking and the style they HAD to work.


The style was garbage. It worked for people like Stone Cold due to his character, but the transversal of brawling back and forth without psychology or storytelling doesn’t do the trick for me.


If that didn’t limit wrestlers whose forte was other styles, the booking of the matches did the trick. Every silly and unrealistic spots in WWF 1999 were used. From contrived ref bumps, lack of application of the rules—such as chairs in a regular match or low blows in a regular match—overbooked interference that had no meaning. Yeah, all that junky, hokey booking all wrapped into one show.

Also, what was with meaningless matches given away on free TV? Well, with Russo it was always about the ratings on the day of. 

He didn't understand that if you build something up, that has hatred and heat in a HITC, then people want to see the match more. They don't want to see a HITC on free tv without any meaning.

Well, they might, but it wouldn't be the same if they were invested into the match.


So why did people love the Attitude Era. Well, that’s easy. 1. Being Stone Cold, who was over no matter what he did. 2. Being people loved seeing car wrecks, meaning people loved it because it was a joke, and they knew it was a joke.


It was silly to them. They didn’t like the art in wrestling; they didn’t even like watching the wrestling.


They liked seeing the Godfather come with his hoes. They liked seeing women being used as sex symbols and PUPPIEZ. They liked it for comedy purposes.


WWF circa 1999 was a train-wreck that people loved to watch. However, it was insulting to the genuine wrestling fans and if wrestling ever gets frowned upon by critics and random people, this era was the main cause of that.


It was a great day when Vince Russo and his pal left the WWF because it allowed Chris Kreski to take over the booking, a booker who emphasized long-term booking, actually gave a sense to look back on his writing to make it as real and logical as possible, and didn’t want to show his face all over the media, saying I am the head-writer of WWF, and I am making all these intriguing angles, which was what Vince Russo loved to do, that being tellling everyone on the Internet that he was writing on the Attitude Era and he was the mastermind behind it, although everyone knows he got the original idea from ECW and his storylines from the b-level movies he use to rent.


Vince Russo has done a lot of harm to pro-wrestling, and is one of the main reasons why wrestling is so stereotyped as being this horrible disease to society.



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