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| An evil, but a necessary one for the purposes of this exercise Photo Credit: WWE.com |
With that in mind, I'd like to argue that the Attitude Era never ended, regardless of what anyone within or outside the company might argue. The way I see it, when Steve Austin was put in the position of being the top dog in WWE's pecking order while letting him be the anti-authoritarian hellraiser that got so much fan support, it signaled a fundamental shift in how the company was going to present its product. Antiheroes became the rule of the day, authority figures got more currency as characters, belts were replaced as goals or McGuffins with the abstract ideals of power and control, and the swerve replaced the resolution as the thing to work towards.
Not everything has remained static within WWE from the late '90s. Eras hardly remain the same from start to finish; for example, I'd argue that WWE has done a good job of lessening its reliance on swerve booking as a rule to a point of equilibrium. Swerves are still there, but there's also a good feeling that if a story starts, it will have an ending that at least attempts to satisfy. Still, a lot of the components of the Attitude Era have remained. Authority figures are definitely still among the most powerful agents in the WWE Universe. Belts have become devalued to the point that the only ones currently that have any cache because of how they were protected are the WWE Championship and, at least in the very short term, the Tag Team Championships.
Other strains have not only remained, but evolved. No longer are the antiheroes as in your face as Austin was. They've taken on the guise of the Hulk Hogan moral good guy while retaining many of the same outlandish and culturally questionable character traits of the Austin model. Furthermore, they've become more like bullies than Austin, whose orneriness was a reaction to corporate bullying, ever was. Even if the specifics aren't the same as they were in 1998 enough to say that this is still the "Attitude Era," then maybe I can get you to agree with me that the last fifteen-to-seventeen years have been part of an overarching "Attitude Dynasty."
Some dynastic cycles in wrestling have more life than others. The tour-to-arena show model lasted for a good long time out of necessity, but it's proof that there are circumstances that can lead to long shelf-lives. To wit, the pay-per-view centric model of the Rock 'n Wrestling Era has now been eclipsed in time period by this current Attitude Dynasty. Just as that was a model that needed replacing, I feel like the shelf-life of the current era has elapsed. We're starting to see rehashes of rehashes in WWE. The only effective authority figure of the last five years has been John Laurinaitis. The babyfaces' behaviors are turn-offs to parents who might not want their kids to emulate various bad actions by folks like John Cena or Sheamus.
Much like in the olden days of real, lineal dynasties in feudal countries, the most effective way to end one dynasty and enact another one that is totally different is by coup. Obviously, no one's going to ride their cavalry into Titan Towers in order to pillage the offices and put the McMahon family members' heads on pikes, much to the chagrin of people who might literally want to see that happen. It's not the people who need to pass away into history though. It's the ideals. The public execution of groundwork that comprises the Attitude Dynasty need to be blasted away right there on RAW, Smackdown, and on PPV.
The first thing that needs to be done away with is the idea of the authority figure as a power player within the company. The second one is that abstract "power" is greater than the Championship belt. To me, that can be accomplished through doing one thing. It's going to kill me to type this, because it's the one thing that haunts my nightmares every single time I lay my head to sleep, but sometimes, the hard choice has to be made. For this to work, Triple H has to win the WWE Championship.
Now excuse me, I have to go wretch for twenty minutes…
Okay, now that that's over, here's why Trips has to win his 14th World Championship within WWE. He's the Chief Operating Officer within the story (and I think he's that outside as well, although I could be wrong on the actual title he has). He's an authority figure, and he has the actual physical credibility to win the WWE Championship. Because believe me, Vince McMahon as Champ in 2013 (-14, -15, or beyond) would be a billion times more awful than it was in 1999.
The first reason for this is that Trips has to view the belt as more prestigious as his own power, and he has to treat it as such. After he wins the title, he has to use his power to keep it at all costs. Being the COO is nice and well and good, but if the office he really cares about is the wrestling ring, then the WWE Championship should be the thing he cares most about in the world. The second reason is that the person that beats him for the title would then have a serious Aragorn vibe going for him. Not only was the son of Arathorn the rightful heir to the throne of Gondor, a throne he ended up claiming at the end f Lord of the Rings, but he was the man whom Middle Earth history would remember as the ender (with help from his friends, ESPECIALLY Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins) of the Age of Sauron. A literal era shifted within that world.
Who would be Aragorn in this scenario? Well, it could be anyone. CM Punk? Okay! John Cena? I wouldn't pick him, but at least he's an active wrestler. Daniel Bryan? YES! YES! YES! Dolph Ziggler? I could think of far worse candidates for the job. Sami Zayn? If you don't mind waiting a couple of years, then sure! Hodor? HODOR! At this point, the person who ends Triple H's reign isn't as material to the cause as the fact that someone who isn't a member of the McMahon family or who isn't a part-time hit-for-hire like Brock Lesnar, The Rock, Steve Austin, or even BIG DAVE BATISTA (the Hodor of WWE!) is the one to end it.
How would it end? Well, I envision a SummerSlam main event where the challenger hits Triple H with his finisher, getting an apparent three count on The Game for the title, only to see the referee count ONE… TWO… and then not slam his hand down to the mat for the third and decisive count. This would drive that challenger ballistic to the point where he's threatening the ref physically, leaving himself ripe for a Pedigree into oblivion. This is the exclamation point on Trips' desire to keep the belt around him at all costs. He'd impugn the credibility of his company's fair process just so he could have a title belt that some have derisively called a "trinket" in the past. Well, how could the WWE Championship be a bauble if the boss cared so much about it to rig a match in his favor?
This would draw Vince McMahon out of his South Transylvanian basement coffin to confront his son-in-law for reasons other than heeling it up by showing concussion concern. Of course, McMahon had done some pretty shitty stuff in his tenure of evil WWE overlord, but watching Triple H keep the title around him at the cost of his own credibility and the dignity of the company that he built would show him, in his earned wisdom, that he had created a monster all the way back in 1997. So he would appear to oppose his tyrannical son-in-law, which would lead to him being fired from his position of COO by the Board of Directors and passing a new company rule that if you're in a position of authority, you can't wrestle for the company, period. Of course, Triple H doesn't care, as long as he has his Championship belt. Again, we accentuate that the title is the most important thing ever, and it's of supreme importance that no one questions this.
This would lead to the Survivor Series main event, after a couple of months of jumping through hoops NOT to defend the title against the one who was screwed, where the WWE Championship would not only be on the line, but each guy's career would as well. Triple H loses everything here, which is the perfect denouement to his career. Obviously, I'm biased here, but hey, my cards are laid bare on the table. You can't accuse me of trying to pass off my subjectivity as objectivity.
Anyway, with WWE essentially rebooted, we now can fix the other problems. Bullies as babyfaces is a problem that could be fixed one of two ways. They can either adopt more of a white-hat/black-hat model, which let's face it, is boring unless the hats were really light gray and dark gray. Or, the company could go away from strict alignment altogether and explore cultivating fanbases. Rather than having designated heels and faces with turns marking shifts in alignment, the company could do something truly innovative and just present characters without the pretense of telling their fans which ones they should root for. There will obviously still be white hats and black hats (or off-white and charcoal, or whatever shades you desire) who will garner almost universal praise or hate. However, it would open the storytelling for more nuance.
The other big thing that I would implement is the elimination of the gender barrier and an opening into treating women with more equality within the company. At the WrestleMania right after the reboot, I would book the title unification match to be between the WWE Champion, World Heavyweight Champion, and the Divas Champion, who'd preferably be Nattie Neidhart, Sara del Rey, or Kharma, just for the sake of putting someone in there who has had experience wrestling men before.
If all of the above sounds cataclysmic, then I've done what I've set out to do. There's no way that WWE can draw blood from the same stone twice. As I always do with fantasy booking (and let's not kid ourselves here, this is fantasy booking), I admit that I am a peon on the Internet who has no idea what the inner workings of a wrestling company are, especially one as monolithic and all-encompassing as WWE. There are a number of ways that I think WWE could remake their image and present a new, fresh product that would draw back in the almighty casual fan. But I hope you guys and gals out there agree that this Attitude Dynasty is ripe for usurpation, and that a change has to be made. I hope the one I laid out at least makes sense.