Being a child of the 80s, I was a fan of WWF, NWA and AWA, along with any indie promotions I happened to catch on television, such as UWF and USWA. By the early 90s, I'd become more interested in wrestling as opposed to cartoon nonsense, so WWF seemed really stale and boring to me. I still watched, but I cared much less. By the time I had discovered ECW, I really paid less attention to WWF and WCW. The latter got me interested again when they debuted Nitro, in late 1995, and brought in stolen talent from ECW. I kept watching WWF, as well, until Bret Hart lost the WWF Title at Wrestlemania XII.
March 1996 is when I really stopped caring and hoped to see the company go out of business. After that point, I only really watched Raw during Nitro commercial breaks, if at all. I had been dying for "The Hitman" to regain the WWF Title, for a year, and his reign was treated poorly. It was so obvious that Michaels was going to get the belt. I figured that, if they were going to push him, they needed to do so before he got too stale. However, the way that they did it left a bad taste in my mouth. The match ended with a draw, yet Hart was called back to the ring for overtime, in which he lost the title. He was made to look weak and as a 15 year old kid, I was disgusted.
Fast forward to 2000. WWF had Cactus Jack, Chris Jericho, Taz, Chris Benoit, Saturn, Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Al Snow. They even picked up Raven, later in the year. ECW had lost most of its worthwhile talent and was really stale, so I had to pay a little more attention to other promotions to get my wrestling fix. Despite the horrible booking, WCW still had decent matches when the right people were in the ring, such as Lance Storm and Mike Awesome. I hated WWF, but they had several of my favorite wrestlers under contract, so I had no choice. If I wanted to continue to follow their careers, I had to tune in.
2000 featured several decent matches, especially the epic Benoit-Jericho feud over the IC Title. In 2001, after the demise of ECW and WCW, WWF brought in even more talent. Now, on top of the people I'd been watching for, there was also Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer, etc. They really had a hell of a roster for a while there. Unfortunately, they didn't do much with it. I got to see decent matches between people like Jericho and Storm, but they were always short and felt to be lacking something. I was disappointed since I knew the matches would have been better in ECW or Japan. Little did I know that this was as good as it got.
By year's end, Chris Jericho won the Undisputed World Title and appeared to be feuding with RVD. I had high expectations for this, until seeing where they'd be going with this. RVD got bumped from the Royal Rumble main event, in favor of The Rock. Jericho was made to look weak during his whole title reign. Then, at Wrestlemania, he jobbed the belt off to HHH. This was so pointless, since HHH jobbed the belt to Hogan a short time later, who then jobbed it to the Undertaker. Of course, he dropped it to The Rock, who barely had time to get his name put on the belt before losing to Brock Lesnar.
Jericho was treated like hell and tossed back into the midcard, RVD's massive popularity went largely ignored, and the promotion as a whole seemed to get REALLY stale. So, 2002 was when I stopped caring. And, really, I can't say I was ever a WWF fan. As a kid, sure. But, in later years, I simply put up with an annoying product to see wrestlers that I'd been following for years. As many of my favorites have moved on, retired or died, I've managed to watch much less. The only reason I tune in to their programming now is to see Chris Jericho and CM Punk. Once those two are gone, I can forget about it once more.
Still, it's sad how things went. For example, 2002 had too many title changes and most of the champs were stale and lame. That's obvious, since the belt kept getting passed around. In my opinion, it would have been better for HHH to put over Jericho at Wrestlemania, to make him look strong. Jericho could have then gone on to beat the Undertaker, Benoit, Flair, etc. before dropping the belt to RVD at Summerslam, who was definitely popular enough at the time. Then, RVD could have worked a program with Brock, dropping the belt to him at Survivor Series. Of course, the Undisputed Title shouldn't have been split up, either.
Well, that's just my two cents.
Fast forward to 2000. WWF had Cactus Jack, Chris Jericho, Taz, Chris Benoit, Saturn, Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Al Snow. They even picked up Raven, later in the year. ECW had lost most of its worthwhile talent and was really stale, so I had to pay a little more attention to other promotions to get my wrestling fix. Despite the horrible booking, WCW still had decent matches when the right people were in the ring, such as Lance Storm and Mike Awesome. I hated WWF, but they had several of my favorite wrestlers under contract, so I had no choice. If I wanted to continue to follow their careers, I had to tune in.
2000 featured several decent matches, especially the epic Benoit-Jericho feud over the IC Title. In 2001, after the demise of ECW and WCW, WWF brought in even more talent. Now, on top of the people I'd been watching for, there was also Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer, etc. They really had a hell of a roster for a while there. Unfortunately, they didn't do much with it. I got to see decent matches between people like Jericho and Storm, but they were always short and felt to be lacking something. I was disappointed since I knew the matches would have been better in ECW or Japan. Little did I know that this was as good as it got.
By year's end, Chris Jericho won the Undisputed World Title and appeared to be feuding with RVD. I had high expectations for this, until seeing where they'd be going with this. RVD got bumped from the Royal Rumble main event, in favor of The Rock. Jericho was made to look weak during his whole title reign. Then, at Wrestlemania, he jobbed the belt off to HHH. This was so pointless, since HHH jobbed the belt to Hogan a short time later, who then jobbed it to the Undertaker. Of course, he dropped it to The Rock, who barely had time to get his name put on the belt before losing to Brock Lesnar.
Jericho was treated like hell and tossed back into the midcard, RVD's massive popularity went largely ignored, and the promotion as a whole seemed to get REALLY stale. So, 2002 was when I stopped caring. And, really, I can't say I was ever a WWF fan. As a kid, sure. But, in later years, I simply put up with an annoying product to see wrestlers that I'd been following for years. As many of my favorites have moved on, retired or died, I've managed to watch much less. The only reason I tune in to their programming now is to see Chris Jericho and CM Punk. Once those two are gone, I can forget about it once more.
Still, it's sad how things went. For example, 2002 had too many title changes and most of the champs were stale and lame. That's obvious, since the belt kept getting passed around. In my opinion, it would have been better for HHH to put over Jericho at Wrestlemania, to make him look strong. Jericho could have then gone on to beat the Undertaker, Benoit, Flair, etc. before dropping the belt to RVD at Summerslam, who was definitely popular enough at the time. Then, RVD could have worked a program with Brock, dropping the belt to him at Survivor Series. Of course, the Undisputed Title shouldn't have been split up, either.
Well, that's just my two cents.
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