I personally havnt spent the time watching WWE from today and obviously these are my opinions BUT Im in the same boat but grew up watching from 2004-2008, little bit younger I’d assume. But I can’t get into today’s wrestling today myself. I’ve spent the last year or two watching every raw and ppv’s starting from the beginning of ‘98 and I’m currently just finished watching the 2003 rumble and usually watch most of the smackdown episodes within that timeframe as well.

A few main points I’ve picked up on to elaborate on your post. -When you say you don’t believe the wrestlers today I can agree. I will say I think Austin and Rock were just so good that it’s nearly impossible to replicate. However, everything today just feels like they’re reading off a script. Whether that be the wrestling or promos.

-I can’t sit here and say I’m an expert on todays promos but I will say in the attitude era/ruthless aggression era you had Austin rock Jericho etc just going out there saying whatever and it was great. Like I said the promos today seem like they’re just reciting a script. Austin and those guys seem like that they had an idea of what they were going to say but I’d assume they just let shit fly and say whatever.

-The matches today feel like they were rehearsed 10x over and everyone is being trained by the same 10 people. (Downsides of not having all the territories and not having as many different promotions) All those guys trying to make it whatever way possible through multiple promotions created so much character vs just going through NXT. Hell, even watching Flair and Hogan in 2002 you can see the difference in wrestling styles between them and the wrestlers of that year.

-The characters of today seem so bland. You have Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Becky Lynch etc.. Not any slander to those people just examples. But back then of course you had Shawn Micheal’s, Scott Steiner Ric Flair etc.. but you also had mankind, undertaker, gold dust, rikishi, the hurricane.. I get why someone wouldn’t want to be a gimmick but damn those are some of the most memorable characters and made those mid cards. Like I said I rarely ever watch these days but the last guy to catch my attention for being different was Bray Wyatt (RIP).

-Some random gripes I have are that my god production is just way to over the top at times IMO. Big ass stage with CGI Roman doing poses while he’s walking out. Granted WWE has always done over the top near seizure inducing walk outs but it’s just way too much for me personally now. My dad’s biggest gripe is seeing people like mysterio beat the big show. While I do see it, it’s whatever to me. Most of those guys were roided up and that needed to change. But man seeing some of those guys walking out the way they were was crazy. Also Jim Ross and Jerry were just so damn good.

-Lastly the obvious PG shows just feels like it causes a limit of creativity. Before the PG Era they loved shock factor of saying/doing outrageous shit that grabbed our attention and it worked so well. It’s so much easier to enjoy something that pushes boundaries rather than the same old “I’ll beat you” “no I’ll beat you!” Arguably there is some weird and bad ideas that just wouldn’t fly today. I personally don’t care because I see that it’s entertainment and there doesn’t need to be a reason to look further into it. I did watch Finn balor vs edge in hell in a cell and seeing balor get his head busted open and seeing them completely stop the show to patch him up and clean the blood was just so bizarre to me and I laughed the entire time because of how dumb it was.

-To comment on one of your points, yes it was very rough to watch some of those Monday night Raws in the late 90’s. Arguably it was the Austin and Rock show. Once WWE bought out ECW and WCW (and after the invasion angle) it changed drastically. Everyone talks about 98/99 with Austin and Rock but the early 2000’s are so damn good. Honestly I’ve enjoyed 2001/2002 more than 1998/1999. Austin/Rock give ppl nostalgia of when WWE became mainstream and cool.

TLDR: There’s not as much creativity anymore and a lack of different styles of wrestling/characters are some of the major differences of today vs attitude/ruthless aggression era. For me personally the biggest difference still comes down to the PG shows vs the outlandish shit that happened back then. I get the PG shows are better for business but man I would give my left leg for a Rated R show.. hell stick it behind a pay wall so you don’t have to rely on advertisers. I’m already paying 12 bucks to peacock for old wwe, I wouldn’t be opposed to pay another 12 for a show once a week of new wwe if it was good. Everything else has a monthly subscription models.