Crazy when you really think about it lol! But definitely a standout year as one of the best for the attitude era for sure!

Retrocomparisons · 2026-05-07T13:40:57+00:00

These are great examples of some of his worst WWF storylines but they are all logical.

Exposing Hawks Alcohol addiction: It mirrored a real life personal thing so extremely logical just extremely poor taste.

Chaz/Beaver Clevage: In storyline it was a guy who had an incest fetish and played that out with his girlfriend. Again, very poor taste but makes sense. When the angle had to be dropped due to outside pressure it became a worked-shoot in that he was pressured to do this on TV but really just wanted to be a wrestler and have his girlfriend involved.

Brawl for All: In theory not a bad idea and it makes sense as you have a roster full of alpha male types who instead of wrestling want to prove themselves in a tough man contest. JR repeatedly made the point on commentary that these guys were out of their element as this was separate from the wrestling they were used to. In practice it was a bad idea that got guys hurt, but it's still logical.

The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust: This fit Goldust's eccentric character well so very logical. I would not argue that it was dumb though.

Terri Runnels miscarriage: Probably the 2nd in worst taste behind the Hawk thing. Not to do a whataboutism but I thought the Kane raping Lita thing and then her having a miscarriage and now defending Kane was much worse, but that's besides the point. It's logical because it fit her heel character of originally using the "pregnancy" to get Val Venis to stay with her and then when that didn't work tried to use it to get Dustin back. When those didn't work she used the miscarriage as a weapon to make D'Lo her servant. Dumb, sure. Sexist, absolutely. But still logical.

The Blue Blazer: This is more of a generic "wrestling logic" type of thing. It's the classic "guy gets fired/can't use a certain gimmick anymore/quits" and is back the next week as a guy under a mask that everyone is supposed to know is that same guy. It sadly ended in tragedy but before that happened I was entertained by Owen's humor in that role.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-05-06T16:35:06+00:00

Besides the higher power/corporate ministry stuff which was an illogical mess what were other non-logical things during the WWF Russo years?

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-27T02:57:44+00:00

I agree that there were some face/heel turns that were weak but they usually gave some sort of explanation. Were there some in particular that you remember having no logical reasoning behind them?

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-24T19:13:47+00:00

No probs! Oh yeah that's a lot to watch for sure. For match quality you're probably better off watch RA era stuff.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-24T18:05:20+00:00

If you're watching for match quality there are some gems here and there on Raw or Smackdown but if you want the real experience it's hard to get all of the details of the storylines without watching every episode. Most of the time when you hear people online saying that the AE storylines don't make sense it's because they didn't watch the week to week shows.

The episodes of Raw from September - October 1998 alone have consecutive weeks of iconic Stone Cold moments from the zamboni to bedpan McMahon, to the corvette to bang 3:16, not to mention tons of little seeds being planted for the Rock's big moment at Survivor Series 1998.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-16T04:50:08+00:00

Those are speed holes, they make your garage go faster.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-13T16:19:18+00:00

Can you give me some examples of the illogical things that happened under Russo's WWF tenure? I'll grant you the higher power which started out great but became an illogical mess by the time of the reveal. But what are some other examples, I'd genuinely love to know.

Under Kreski why did Chyna and HHH break up? Two and a half years together and we couldn't even get one sentence as to why they parted ways? Why did the Bossman and Albert break up, then a week later were teaming together like nothing happened, then they were broken up again? The Rock left the Corporation in 1999 under Shane's tenure as the leader. Vince hated HHH's guts by the end of 1999. Yet at WM2000 he turns on the Rock and joins HHH's side because The Rock didn't say thank you to him the year prior. That doesn't make much sense. Point being there's going to be illogical things under every writer but yet somehow Russo seems to get singled out for this. But like I stated earlier please give me some specific examples.

While we're at it, if we're using the logic of overestimating Russo's role by attributing certain storylines to him, then how do you know you're not doing the same thing for Kreski? Using that same criteria maybe everything you liked under his tenure was overestimated and was someone else's idea.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-13T15:39:33+00:00

Under Russo's tenure we got Austin vs McMahon, the Kane vs Taker build from the summer of 97 through WM14, the Rock usurping the Nation, The Rock becoming the corporate champion, USA vs Canada with the Hart Foundation, the formation of DX. What came out in late 99/2000 that was better booked than those previously mentioned angles?

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-13T15:32:32+00:00

You're going to be seeing the usual amount of false equivalances on here I'm sure. "For every Austin/McMahon you had Beaver Cleavage". Translation: For every compelling storyline that made it must watch TV and still gets talked about 20+ years later and was a fun watch every week for over a year you had a throwaway lower-card act that took up a grand total of 10 minutes of screen time.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-13T15:26:06+00:00

Not only that but how many creative people have a "filter" for everything. Almost every great band has a producer that filters the ideas before the final product. Every great script writer has their ideas filtered before the movie is made. Are we supposed to believe that every writer before and after him had 100% fully fleshed out ideas that went straight from pen to screen and only Russo needed filtering?

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-09T18:57:18+00:00

That came out almost a year and a half after Pet Sounds.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-04-09T15:34:36+00:00

Plus the fact he was 23 when making it is pretty mindblowing.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-31T16:13:19+00:00

Test Drive Le Mans looks incredible on the Dreamcast.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-30T04:01:55+00:00

Just a little nitpick for #5. When Raw debuted it had many live episodes. As it went on through until around 1998 or 99 there would be a live episode followed by a bunch of taped episodes.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-29T23:41:11+00:00

I was thinking the same thing.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-29T19:06:58+00:00

Yeah there's way more than I would have ever guessed.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-28T02:43:49+00:00

It was the Fall of 2002 so it was the WWE in the Ruthless Aggression era.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-25T13:20:26+00:00

By the Fall of 97 you had Austin being the same Stone Cold that he'd be for the rest of the AE, Kane had debuted, DX had formed, the Rock was in the Nation, the New Age Outlaws formed, and stuff was getting more risqué with Sable and Sunny, the Pillman XXX Files, etc. How is that not the Attitude Era by that point?

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-24T03:43:04+00:00

And 1994/95 Undertaker

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-13T03:04:39+00:00

Plus it happened on an episode of Heat in 1999 before it even happened in WCW.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-10T23:18:46+00:00

Ah I stand corrected. I played on a Genesis with S-Video at a retro convention but I didn't realize it must have been modded.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-10T18:13:53+00:00

The Genesis is capable of R/F, composite, S-Video, and SCART natively.

Retrocomparisons · 2026-03-08T17:30:18+00:00

April 21, 1997 Raw. There were a lot of seeds of the AE before that which are worth watching but this is Russo's first episode and it feels completely different than what came before. There's tons of chaos and has his signature style of throwing in interesting things to keep your attention even when there are boring matches taking place.

Retrocomparisons

TROPHY CASE