Seeing The Rock come back made me realize...
 

That there are only a handful of people who come back and get the response The Rock received. It's like he never left. Rocky chants, great mic performance, Michael Cole being there like old times to be made fun of.

I DEFINITELY do not want to have all the old attitude era wrestlers back at all. I like the product now and where its going ALOT..but back to Rocky's reaction, i don't think you get that with anybody who got popular in the WWE after 2002, other than John Cena and MAYBE Randy Orton if his character doesn't go stale or anything. Before any of you say that it hasn't been enough time, its been about 8 good years since we've seen BIG names other than HHH or HBK, in the WWE on a consistent basis. Only Austin, Rock, HHH, Undertaker, HBK, Bret, Sting, Flair, Hogan, etc are going to get those reactions and have everyone's attention the WHOLE time.

I guess what i'm trying to say is 1.) I'm glad i got to watch an era that will never be again..these young guys only saw Hardy, Cena, and Orton at their primes (no offense to them). I saw the nWo, DX, Montreal Screwjob, Mankind being thrown off the HIAC cage, Sting beating Hogan, DDP, Goldberg, etc. 2.) With the way the fans are now, unless there is unbelievable writing for the next 3-5 years, i don't see the wrestlers of today getting to the status, or higher, of the Attitude Era guys, no matter how popular the product. Thats just my opinion of course.

I feel bad for anybody who's 16 and younger right now who's a wrestling fanatic, or a sports fanatic for that matter seeing as they probably never got to understand how good the Jordans, Gretzkys, Jeters, etc really were. But i guess there's King James.

....and about 16 years from now they will be saying the same exact thing to the generation after them. But I will say I do agree with you, My generation got to experience the 80's & the 90's, and in my opinion those two were the best decades in life so far, not just wrestling. Just crazy how watered down/over done everything seems in the 2000's thanks to the technology and social networks.

Indeed. Cena & Orton are to the kids of today what Rock & Austin were to us. They probably don't see the difference and your opinion won't change that.

It's all about perspective.

Definitely this. The 80's and 90's were fucking awesome.

I mean The Rock set the entertainment value of a wrestler at a high bar. I think thats why Cena acts the way he does during mic time.

This thread got me thinking, remembering back to the 80's and 90's pre-Attitude, there were so many great characters. You had Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant, Mr Perfect, Macho Man Randy Savage, Jake The Snake Roberts, The Million Dollar Man, The Ultimate Warrior, ect...

After that, a new breed of Superstars came in such as; Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Diesel, ect...

Than came Stone Cold, The Rock, HHH, yada yada...

What I am getting to is, in today's world of Pro Wrestling, there is a serious lack of Characters. Well I guess I shouldn't put it that way, I guess a better way of saying it is, there are a lot more less interesting characters today than there ever was. Sure you have John Cena, who is a great worker and the face of the "sport" but his character is shit. Much the same could be said about Randy Orton.

I truly believe this is where the problem is in today's world of wrestling. The characters stink.

I think its probably because they all come from the WWE farm systems, they are all trained to talk, act and wrestle by the same trainers. In the old days they all came from a variety of backgrounds, different territories in different states where the talent all perfected their gimmick or character before taking themselves national and signing with Vince.

On a further note, i think this is why CM Punk's persona and ring style stands out so much because he'd actually been around the business and experienced some shit instead of being trained in OVW for 18 months then getting thrown on national T.V