Wrestling Generations
An 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.
Who said wrestling fans were stupid??
Thanks, Scott (and pure_dynamite). One of the main premises of the book (which was published in 1991) was that each generation has its own collective personality. Sure enough, as soon as all the guys on top in the WWF were what the book would consider 13ers (now known as Generation X; born 1961-1981), a new era began in the WWF and wrestling changed forever. I guess Vince knew what he was doing showing his own generation the door (even if he did screw Bret) so that the ‘Attitude’ Generation could take over.
My only comment would be that I would consider Shawn Michaels & Undertaker to be Boom Era figures rather than X Era figures, considering that both were name performers (if not main eventers) as early as 1990. This makes for a more accurate transitional period beginning (as you said) with UT bringing Hulkamania down in 1991, but ending (instead) with Austin toppling Michaels at WM XIV in 1998. Remember, that marked Shawn’s last appearance in a PPV match for over four years, so it really wouldn’t be right to rope him in there with Austin, Rock, Foley, HHH and the others who carried the company until Attitude died in 2001. Other than a one-shot reign in 2002, he hasn’t been a title face since that fateful day in 1998, and UT’s only had a few brief title runs to his credit since losing to Bret in 1997, so he really doesn’t belong there either. The other thing to remember is that if Vince releasing Bret + Montreal hadn’t happened, Bret would have held the title until WM XIV and been the one to drop to Austin anyway, so WM XIV all the way around marks the transitional point better than Survivor Series does.
Interesting stuff, nitpicking aside, though.
Good points, but…
- Undertaker was pushed when he was really young and green just because his gimmick and look were so cool. He didn’t really come into his own as a worker and REAL title contender until 96/97, when the Xers were taking over. His win over Hogan in ‘91 (and face fan reaction) was really just a sign that times were about to change.
- Yeah, Michaels missed the Attitude era, but that was only because a back injury forced him out of action for over 4 years. Otherwise I’m sure he would have stayed in the main event for most of the time. During Michaels’ first title run in ‘96, the WWF even began referring to “The New Generation” of wrestlers, with Michaels leading the way. And the next year Michaels founded D-Generation X; it’s not hard to imagine what the name of the group was referring to. It makes sense from Bret Hart’s perspective too. He came back to WWF in late ‘96 to find it a much different world than the one he had dominated from 92-95. Fans no longer wanted a straight-shooting baby face; they wanted Austin. I think deep down Bret wanted to go to WCW because the old guard was still in control there. But aside from that, you’re right, Austin’s win at WM14 signalled the REAL start of the Attitude Era. The way I look at it, Shawn helped set the stage for the glory days of his generation, but then wasn’t around to enjoy them.
- I went by wrestlers’ birthyears when sorting them out, and THEN tried to piece the eras together. Austin, Michaels, and Undertaker were all born within a year of each other in 1964-65, with Austin being the oldest of the three.
Thanks for the post, I like having someone to discuss this stuff with.
I get where you’re going with this . . . but I feel that “era” and “generation” might be two different things. You can say wrestling is in three generations, but I think “eras” are different. Especially for the E.
Era #1: The Vince SR. era (1963-1983)
Things worked differently back then as WWWF was a regional promotion. Even when they weren’t part of the NWA for the first eight/ten years, they were a Northern promotion. Even when they rejoined the NWA, they were still a old-school based promotion of the old style of wrestling. Their main focus was two old-school style wrestlers Sammartino and Backlund. Graham was a forerunner to the Vince K McMahon — Sports Entertainment era, but still a 9 month heel champion that set up the new old-school hero.
Era #2: The Sports Entertainment Era (1983-1993): Should be more known as the Hulk Hogan era. Sure Backlund (last few months), Sheik, Savage, Warrior, Slaughter, Taker, Hart and Flair played in it — but it was basically Hogan’s era. Yes, Bret Hart played in the Hogan era — although 1992 was the year where Vince really distanced himself away from Hogan for the first time and when Hogan did come back in 1993 — he did seem like a distant guest that didn’t fit in the skeme anymore. The end of the era was most likely Wrestlemania 8, but the casket wasn’t really lowered into the ground for good until early 1994 when the Next Generation really took off.
Era 3: The Next Generation (1994-1997): Mostly known as the Bret Hart/Clique era. Hart stayed as a high focal Main Event/Midcard draw during the entire time — but his backstage foes the cliques were equally draws during this era. Lot of people played poltics, and there was no real focal champion that made the company and real money. Vince went with Bret when there was nobody else, and then tried expriments like Diesel which was cool — but in terms of money — a disaster. I’m not sure if HBK’s first title regin was a success either, nor the Sid experiment - as it always got thrown back to Bret to clean up the mess until it was time for Vince to give the ball to someone else. I think losing both Bret and HBK saved the WWF at the time when Attitude came into the scene . . .
ERA #4: The Attitude Era (1998-2001): Simply put, this was the Austin-Rock era. Mostly Austin, but both men were incredible draws for the era and Rocky vs. Austin (to me) was a blast of the past of the Hogan-Andre; Hogan-Flair fueds where two hot properties fought each other in a battle of wills. Sure Triple H swam in this pond, but he was nothing . . . even when he actually took a storyline and turned it into a romance for real. I think it was great Hunter and Steph got married because the two are self-centered, egotistical brats that deserve each other.
ERA #5: (2001-current) The Next Generation Redux: This might not be fair, but to me there hasn’t been a real standout since Steve Austin vanished in 2002. I would almost call 2001 the last year of the Attitude era and everything else has just been redux filler. Sure we got hot matches like Rock-Hogan; The Murderer vs. Kurt Angle; Brock Lesnar; etc.. And 2005 was a standout year for Cena . . . but really the E has no real direction anymore. I mean they were killing off main characters as part of storylines before a wrestler decided to go commando and drug his family and then strangle them to death.