Wrestling Generations
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007An interesting quasi-column e-mailed to me by a reader, so here it is. I’ve never thought about the subject in this matter, actually, although everything in wrestling IS cyclical and repeating, so it makes sense.
Hey Scott, I’ve been reading the book “Generations” by
William Strauss and Neil Howe. You’ve probably heard
of it. Anyways, I decided to take a look wrestling
history and break it down by generations (based on the
birth year of the current champion).
The WWWF/WWF/WWE has basically had 3 generations of
wrestlers:
The SILENT Era (1963-1977)
Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales
The BOOM Era (1977-1996)
Billy Graham, Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, Andre the
Giant, Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart, and
Diesel
The X Era (1996-present)
Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Steve Austin, The Rock,
Mick Foley, Triple H, The Big Show, Kurt Angle, Chris
Jericho, Brock Lesnar, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, and
Chris Benoit
The Boom Era started on April 30, 1977 when Boomer
Billy Graham defeated Silent Bruno Sammartino for the
WWWF Title. Two years later, the WWWF became the WWF.
The Boom Era ended on March 31, 1996 when Xer Shawn
Michaels defeated Boomer Bret Hart for the WWF Title.
Six years later, the WWF became the WWE.
The first Xer to hold the WWF title was Undertaker,
who won it from Hulk Hogan on Nov 21, 1991. The last
Boomer to hold the title (besides Vince McMahon and
Hogan’s nostalgia run in 2002) was Bret Hart, who lost
the title to Shawn Michaels again on Nov. 9, 1997.
During that six-year period, the main event was
dominated by both aging boomers (Hogan, Flair, Savage,
Bret, Diesel, Sid) and rising Xers (Undertaker,
Yokozuna, Michaels, Austin). This six-year period,
which started with Undertaker striking a death blow to
Hulkamania and ended with Bret’s infamous farewell
match in Montreal, also happened to be a transitional
period for the WWF, as Hogan’s 80s boom era was over
but Austin’s Attitude generation had not yet taken
over.
Just for kicks, I also decided to take a look at the
NWA/WCW title history, which had 5 generations of
wrestlers:
The MISSIONARY Era (1904-1915)
George Hackenschmidt
The LOST Era (1915-1935)
Ed “Strangler” Lewis
The G.I. Era (1935-1966)
Lou Thesz, Pat O’Connor
The SILENT Era (1966-1975)
Dory Funk Jr., Jack Brisco
The BOOM Era (1975-2000)
Terry Funk, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair,
Sting, Lex Luger, Vader, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage,
DDP, Kevin Nash, and Sid
Two things about the NWA/WCW:
1. Just like the U.S. presidency, the G.I. generation
dominated the NWA for a long time (31 years), while
the Silents had control for only 9 years before the
Boomers (Funk, Race and Rhodes) took over.
2. The Boomer Era never really ended in WCW, and, as
everybody most likely knows, this is one of the main
reasons the company went under. Instead of retiring
when the WWF began shifting to Xers in the mid-90s,
all the Boomers just jumped over to WCW and continued
to dominate the main event for the remainder of the
decade. By the time the ship was obviously sinking in
2000, most of the Boomers had bailed out, but by then
most of the rising Xers had already gone over to WWF
(a situation you’ve written plenty about). I guess
you could say WCW had a transitional period which
began on July 6, 1998, when Xer Goldberg defeated (who
else?) Hogan, and ended on March 26, 2001 on the last
Monday Nitro. During the company’s sad last year of
existence, the title was tossed around between aging
Boomers (Sid, DDP, Flair, Nash) and aging or mediocre
or non-wrestling Xers (Jeff Jarrett, Booker T, Scott
Steiner, Vince Russo, and David Arquette). WCW had
plenty of top-line Xer talent (Austin, Undertaker,
HHH, Foley, Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero), and watched
all of it depart to WWF between 1990 and 2000.
According to Strauss & Howe’s theory, there are 4
basic generational types which repeat every cycle (80
or 90 years). Life always seems to be particularly
hard on Reactive generations (the last of which is
Generation X). S&H talk about how first-wave Gen-Xers
were known for having the lowest test scores and
highest crime and drug-use rates of any group in
modern U.S. history. By my count, 23 wrestlers have
wrestled in at least one singles match on a WWE ppv
and died before the age of 50. Of those 23, twelve
were born between 1961 and 1967 (first-wave Xers).
Sorry about the monumental size of this email, but I
thought that this might be interesting to you, even if
none of it is particularly shocking.
Take care.
