Oh how I long for the days when Vince McMahon could entertain me for a full two hours straight. Watching todays WWE product makes me wish the laws of human biology allowed me to facilitate the half dozen or so 'bathroom break' segments we're treated to during a typical two hour WWE timeslot on Spike and UPN. So in my infinite wisdom and unbridled enthusiasm, not to mention that fact that I haven't dished out a column like this in more than a year, I have decided to bust out another edition from the highly popular "Nostalgia Pop" series for the legion of OWW readers. There is no doubt that Steve Austin's name will come up numerous times during this piece; After all, he was the four-letter-word using, middle-finger flipping, 24-pack-of-beer guzzling thorn in Vince McMahon's side who supplied the fuel that sparked the most successful and entertaining era in the history of the World Wrestling Federation. An era that wrestling fans accross the globe affectionately refer to as the "Attitude Era".

The Birth of Attitude: It all started when Vince McMahon woke up one morning with an all-too-familiar pain in his backside. You see, Ted Turner was kicking Vince in the rear end on a weekly basis as their respective wrestling companies were going head to head in a battle which insiders dubbed the "Monday Night Wars." After McMahon's Monday Night Raw program ran unopposed for 2 years, WCW President Eric Bischoff decided to get WCW a time slot paralell to RAW on a different network. Nitro was an immediate success and eventually over took the WWF in the ratings, and cause more than one emergency meeting amung the suits in the WWF. Vince McMahon became increasingly paranoid, as he watched Superstar-after-superstar defect to the rival promotion for a bigger paycheck. Soon WCW was crushing WWF on a weekly basis and Vince knew he had to do something drastic, or else he's be out of business in no time. He sunk to the lowest common dinominator, and scored a game winning home run. More sex. More violence. More bullsh*t.

Pushing the Envelope: You will never forget the name ffffttthhththhhththhthhhhhhh Gooooooldust. I'm sure Dustin Rhodes would love to forget Goldust but the fans certainly haven't. Goldust originally appeared in a series of vignettes, dressed flamboyantly in a golden robe with a blonde wig and sparkly face paint. Goldust warned WWF superstars of his eventual arrival, using quotes from movies to perpetuate the dramatic effect of his threats. Now what's so controversial about a "movie buff" gimmick? Well that was just a cover. The REAL shtick was his tendency to use his homosexuality to get under the skin of his opponents. It didn't become fully apparent until he actually stepped into the ring that Dustin Rhodes was following in the footsteps of Gorgeous George and Adrian Adonis. Goldust would enter the ring after an elaborate entrance sequence and remove his robe. He would then proceed to caress himself all over while glaring across the ring at his opponent, who without a doubt was beginning to contemplate forfeiting his paycheck to get out of town FAST. Once Goldust became a legitimate competitor in the eyes of the fans, he went after his first major feud. He began making advances towards Razor Ramon, the man who oozes machismo, and certainly the last WWF Superstar who would find Goldusts antics amusing. So the feud ensued but even Razor was uncomfortable with it so it didn't go very far. Goldust, however, continued pressing the buttons of competitors, and fans, with his bizarre behavior. He eventually turned face, and suddenly fans were thrilled when Goldust used his tricks against heel wrestlers. Goldust would later turn heel once again and become ten times more bizarre. The Goldust character, for all its questionable qualities, was a huge factor in pushing the envelope in the WWF.

Hellllllllo ladies. WWF writers made it abundantly clear that there were no boundaries when they introduced Canadian wrestler Sean Morely to the fans as a male porn star named Val Venis -- who came to the ring wearing a towel and gyrated his hips like Ravishing Rick Rude did in the 80s. It was his pre-match routine that really got him over with the fans. Venis would come out with his towel and give a short speech that included several not-so-vague sexual innuendos, and then pull a scintillating female fan out of the crowd and kiss her after she helped him out of his towel. Whenever Val Venis was written into a feud with another wrestler, all he had to do was convince his enemy's girlfriend or sister to perform in one of his movies and you had instant heat - from the enemy at least - the fans loved it! Such a situation occurred when Venis noticed a young lady named Ryan Shamrock in the front row and began checking her out. Ryan just so happened to be Ken Shamrock's sister, so he ran down to defend her, even though she looked like she was into what Venis had to offer. So naturally with the fans loving the character so much, Venis was turned babyface. At the time, there was a group of Japanese cruiserweights running around the WWF calling themselves Kaientai. Kaientai's manager, Yamagushi San, began showing off his young wife on WWF television. Val Venis immediately noticed this beautiful Asian model and started making advances towards her. Of course this led to the girl joining Val in one of his Adult films. This infuriated Yamaguchi San to the point where he ordered Kaientai to abduct Val Venis and tie his arms up. He then ordered them to pull Val's pants down and put his, um, tool of the trade, up on the table. Yamaguchi then raised a samurai sword above his head and screamed "Now I CHOPPY CHOPPY YOUR PEE PEE!!" and swung downward just as the feed went black. Fans would later learn that their erotic hero escaped with his manhood due to "shrinkage." Whew!

It seemed like there wasn't one character left that didn't have some kind of sexual overtone. But that's the way the fans liked it. Sex sells. And everybody likes sex. That's why the WWF created a character that blatantly offered sex with women in his employ at top dollar. The Godfather was a man with very little wrestling ability, but enough natural charisma and personality to make up for it. He, unlike most of these controversial gimmicks, started as a babyface. He would break through the curtain only to be met with thunderous boos, only because he'd forgotten one very important part of his act - The hos!! Yes, the Godfather became famous for bringing a group of prostitutes to the ring with him and showing them off to the crowd before offering them to his opponents in exchange for forfeiting the match to him. Some of the wrestlers actually took him up on the offer. The Godfather was really good at involving the audience, as he would give the same speech before every match. "It's time, once again, for everybody to come aboard the (crowd yells "Ho Train!"). Now I know that I ain't the only one. Is there any pimps up in this house? Everybody knows that the Godfather be pimpin' ho's nation wide! Man, I want to hear you from the top of this building to the front row, and everybody in between, reach down and roll up a fatty, for this pimp-daddy, and light it up for the Godfather and say, Pimpin' Ain't Easy!..."

Al Snow's character was harmless enough. He was just a semi-psychotic man with a taste for hardcore violence. You could say that about any WWF wrestler, but what made Al Snow so controversial was that he brought a mannequins head with him to the ring. The words "HELP ME" were written backwards on the mannequin's forehead. I'm not exactly sure what the intended purpose behind this was, but some anti-WWF groups ended up drawing their own conclusions. They claimed that the "Head" represented the severed head of a spouse, and that Al Snow was an abusive husband who chopped off his wife's head and was carrying it around as a trophy. Well, I don't know maybe I was just a clueless mark, but I didn't even think about that until those people mentioned it. They ended up getting the Al Snow action figured pulled from shelves everywhere. They didn't seem to have any problem that Al Snow's entrance music began with Al asking "What does everybody want?" and the fans yelling back "HEAD!" So when Al was forced to give HEAD up for a while, he needed a new gimmick. Al Snow began bringing his little dog "Pepper" to the ring with him. The Big Bossman was apparently not a dog lover, as he dognapped Pepper and demanded a shot at Al Snow's hardcore title. Bossman won the Hardcore title and renegged on his promise to give Pepper back. The following week, Bossman wanted to make it up to Al by serving him a home cooked meal, which he later revealed to be "Stir-fried Pepper". If this wasn't far enough accross the line of morality, a few weeks later on Smackdown!, Al Snow fought Big Bossman in a special "Pepper on a Pole" match, in which the Bossman put a bag containing the remaining portion of the deep fried Pepper up on a pole. For some reason Al Snow fought desperately to retrieve these remains. The conclusion of this storyline was a horrible match at Unforgiven that took place inside of a steel cage INSIDE of a Hell in a Cell. The special stipulation was that a couple of "rabid" rottweilers roamed the area between the two cages during the match. The funny thing was that they weren't very intimidating and couldn't care less about the match, and made their feelings known by pooping on the floor at ringside.

The Sex: In 1996, the WWF went out of their way to sign USA Olympic Weight Lifter Mark Henry to a lucrative long-term WWF Contract. What made this so unusual was that at the time, Mark Henry had no wrestling training whatsoever. So when that fact came back to bite WWF in the butt, as they quickly realized they needed to find other ways to book Mark as not to expose his lack of wrestling ability. Sexual Chocolate was born. It was basically a hornier version of what Viscera is doing these days in the WWE. Mark's first main squeeze was Chyna, who wasn't too thrilled about Sexual Chocolate's advances at first, but slowly warmed up to him and offered to have a threesome with her best friend Sammy. So live on the air, Mark Henry began receiving oral sex from Sammy. At some point during this skit, Mark got a handful of something he wasn't expecting, and realized that Sammy was actually a man! Mark would later prooved his lack of taste in women by engaging in a sexual relationship with 80 year old Mae Young. The story doesn't end there, as Mae ended up getting pregnant by Mark, and eventually gave birth to a "hand." If that sounds bad to you, then you're right.

The term "Diva" was born in the Attitude era. The pioneer of the Diva revolution was a fiesty young blond named Sunny. By the time the Attitude era was taking over the WWF, Sunny was being phased out, and replaced by a former Guess Jeans model named Rena Mero - also known as Sable. Sable was Vince McMahon's ticket to porno immortality. It wasn't long before Vince brokered a deal to have Sable strip naked and pose for Playboy. It became Playboy's biggest selling issue in history, and cemented an ongoing relationship between WWE and Playboy that would last for years. The next to appear in the pages of Playboy was Chyna, who actually broke Sable's record.

When Debra McMichael signed with the WWF, fresh off her stint with WCW, as well as her bitter divorce from Steve McMichael, she quickly became one of the companys top divas. The crowd became utterly obsessed with Debras breasts, both of which could have been registered as deadly weapons. One night on RAW, the Roaddog quietly refered to Debra's breasts as "puppies" and Jerry Lawler seemed to pick up on it. Lawler, who was RAW color commentator, began calling Debra's breasts "puppies" every week. That lead to Debra appearing on the cover of RAW magazine holding her puppies, well more accurately holding a pair of real puppies. Great pun!

Where there's Divas, you'll usually find Jerry "The King" Lawler. Lawler's obsession with hot women was never a secret. In time, his real life girlfriend, Stacy, was written into the script as Debra's assistant "Miss Kitty" - get it? Puppies and Kitties! Miss Kitty went out on her own and started competing in the ring as "The Kat" and eventually winning the Women's title in a match that took place in a pool and involved several divas. Immediately following that match, The Kat shocked the world by pulling off her top and exposing her bare breasts LIVE on Pay Per View. The publicity stunt got a lot of negative feedback but also got people talking about the WWF. More than a few fans began buying WWF PPVs hoping to see nudity. WWF capitalized on these expectations and got 80+ year old Mae Young to take off her top at Royal Rumble the following month. The fans suddenly changed their minds and decided they didn't want nudity in the WWF any more.

The Violence: Mankind. Crash Holly.

Trash Talking Sons of Bitches:

A Deal with the Devil:

The Austin Factor: The birth of Stone Cold Steve Austin may never have happened if it weren't for Vince McMahon's decision to transform himself into an evil on-screen character. The WWF was catering its product to the common man, and Steve Austin personified the common man. If you took a poll of a hundred "common men" and asked them if they would kick their employer's ass and not get fired for it, ninety nine of them would probably say yes - or hell yes! The one guy left over was probably afraid his boss was listening. So it wasn't any surprise that millions of common men began tuning into RAW every Monday night to witness Stone Cold Steve Austin terrorize the hell out of his boss on national television. It allowed those men (and yes, I'll admit it, women too) to live vicariously through Steve Austin. By making that sort of a connection with the fans, Stone Cold Steve Austin turned into the most over wrestler in the history of the wrestling business. You can argue that The Hulkster was better but I challenge you to compare tapes and experience the euphoria in the eyes of fans hooked on the emotions evoked by Stone Cold Steve Austin whenever he kicked his unsuspecting victim in the gut and delivered a Stone Cold Stunner. No leg drop could ever deliver such reaction.

Memories to Last a Lifetime:

The Desensitization of America:

by Brad Dykens