Here’s a fairly basic and extremely simplified timeline of North American wrestling history to give context to this blog. This isn’t exhaustive but it is fairly largely WWE-centric. Sorry. I’ll probably expand it out later to make it more even across the board. For now, take it as a potted history of the WWE’s eras, a decent starting point for any newcomer.
Territories Era (XXXX-June 5 1982)
As far as this blog is concerned, this is “the Before Times.” An awful lot of wrestling from this period doesn’t exist on tape any more, if it ever did, giving it a somewhat mythical quality as it lives on in whispered legend. Tales of icons like Bruno Sammartino and Pedro Morales exemplify what wrestling “used to be like” in the days of smoky bingo halls and gymnasiums – yeah right, that’s if you believe the revisionist history. The truth is, wrestling was hot in this period – really, really hot! It’s just that when you’re the self-appointed arbiter of wrestling history, you get to tell all sorts of crazy lies! This period gets its name from the territory system, in which North America was divided up between promoters so they wouldn’t step on one another’s toes.
The Golden Era (June 6 1982-June 13 1993)
So, anyway, one of those promoters had a son and it turned out he just loved stepping on people’s toes. On the 6th of June 1982, Vincent K. McMahon bought the World Wide Wrestling Federation from his father, Vincent J., dropped the “Wide” from the name and then set about dropping his competition. “Junior” was aggressive in signing the best talent from across North America, particularly the AWA, home to rising star Hulk Hogan. Hogan would go on, as I’m sure I don’t need to explain to anyone reading this, to become the most famous professional wrestler perhaps of all time and the WWF enjoyed a boom period on his back. Meanwhile, the WWF’s top competitor, Jim Crockett Promotions, would be bought out by Ted Turner in 1988 and become World Championship Wrestling. WCW had a boom of their own and many of wrestling’s biggest and brightest stars thrived in this time period.
The New Generation (June 14 1993-November 8 1997)
It turned out the good times would not last. Well, not for the WWF at least. With Hulk Hogan out the door, Vince McMahon found himself caught in the middle of a steroid distribution scandal. Though McMahon was acquitted, the WWF decided to change tack with the promotion of their top talent. Instead of over-muscled bags of meat, the company would now spotlight more believably proportioned talent such as Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, the 1-2-3 Kid, the Undertaker, Razor Ramon and Diesel (who was very tall, yes, but you don’t get that from steroids). McMahon seemed weirdly thrown off his game, however, and would struggle to find a replacement for Hogan… which was unfortunate for him because Hogan soon signed with WCW, whose deep coffers allowed them to match pace with the stumbling WWF and start to outstrip them.
The Monday Night Wars (September 4 1995-March 26 2001)
The Monday Night Wars were a ratings battle between the WWF’s flagship television programme, Monday Night Raw and WCW’s counterpart, Monday Nitro (get it?). The two shows would go head-to-head for basically Nitro’s entire run. As Hulk Hogan, previously the WWF’s biggest star and hero, became the villainous Hollywood Hogan and helped form the New World Order, WCW decisively started to kick the tar out of the WWF, which was seen by many fans at the time as hokey, tired and childish. If McMahon’s WWF was to avoid going out of business, a completely new strategy would be needed. Elsewhere, ECW rebranded itself from Eastern Championship wrestling to Extreme Championship Wrestling and became the land of hardcore, booked by the mad scientist of professional wrestling, Paul Heyman. ECW’s influence on wrestling would be felt during this time and to this very day.
The Attitude Era (November 9 1997-April 1 2001)
If the WWF was going to survive, a new approach was needed. Gone were the childish, silly gimmicks. In their place was a new attitude – brash personalities, often engaging in shocking, violent or raunchy behaviours. McMahon would finally find the new face of his company – not an all-American golden boy like Hulk Hogan, but a foul-mouthed, beer-swilling redneck who flipped his middle finger at everyone he didn’t like: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Austin proved to be a perfect foil for McMahon’s on-screen character (the imaginatively named Mr. McMahon), who portrayed the evil boss to end all evil bosses in the wake of the controversial real-life circumstances leading to Bret Hart’s exit from the WWF. Austin, The Rock, Mankind and Triple H were just a few of the major talent to rise to greatness in this period. In the end, WCW collapsed under its own weight and McMahon bought the company for a pittance. Around this time, ECW also went under and McMahon would soon swoop in to buy their rights out too. The war was over.
The Post-War Period (April 2 2001-March 17 2002)
But how do you keep a wrestling audience engaged when you helped kill two of their major options? This year-long epilogue to the Attitude Era would try its best to answer that question, with a huge influx of former WCW and ECW talent joining the WWF roster in an angle known as the Invasion. Reception to the Invasion has been mixed over the years, owing largely to the lack of big names from WCW to face off against the WWF talent. The storyline ended with WCW and ECW officially amalgamated into the fold. Now, in storyline just as in real life, the WWF was the only game in town. With this matter resolved, one question remained: now what?
Ruthless Aggression Era (March 18 2002-July 21 2008)
In early 2002, the WWF would face a legal challenge by the World Wide Fund over the use of their initials. Losing the battle, the World Wrestling Federation was forced to rebrand to World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE. Much of this period was spent trying to win back audience members who had left following the end of the Attitude Era, but with a shifting cultural zeitgeist and television landscape, this would prove to be an almost impossible task. With Austin and The Rock moving on to pastures new, McMahon’s WWE focused on solidifying Kurt Angle and Triple H in the main event as well as introducing a crop of new stars, with many of 2002’s additions considered among the greatest of all time. ECW was also revived as a WWE brand, though would be retooled in 2007 to highlight up-and-coming WWE talent. Tragedy would define the tail-end of this period as beloved wrestler Eddie Guerrero shockingly passed away. A year and a half later, Guerrero’s best friend Chris Benoit murdered his family before taking his own life. It was later learned that Benoit’s head trauma was so severe he had the brain of an elderly Alzheimer’s patient. In the wake of these tragedies, and with greatly improved understanding of head injuries, the WWE instituted all manner of policies designed to protect wrestlers and prevent their loss of life at too young an age. In keeping with this, the product would also have to be toned down.
Universe Era (July 22 2008-March 23-2014)
The Universe Era, so named for its coining of the term WWE Universe for the company’s fans, saw the company take a TV-PG approach to storytelling and matches. This did not always result in the most well-loved product. Company poster boy John Cena would often catch the ire of scores of fans across the globe, fairly or otherwise, for representing what they perceived to be a change in direction for the company. Older fans often found it difficult to accept they were no longer WWE’s target audience. As these fans began to resent Cena more and more strongly, many of them took solace in CM Punk, an outspoken performer who seemed like a throwback to the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Eras. Punk was afforded the opportunity to speak his mind on a 2011 episode of Raw – and the “Pipebomb” promo helped reinvigorate interest from many lapsed fans, not hurt by the brief return of The Rock or the debut of a new trio: The Shield. The Shield’s members – Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns – would go on to become the most pivotal names in professional wrestling over the course of the next decade-plus. Meanwhile, in 2010, the ECW brand was discontinued and replaced with NXT, a scripted gameshow with the winner earning a WWE contract. Though NXT eventually floundered in this format, it was revamped as WWE’s developmental brand, a role which it holds to this day, with a vast pedigree of future WWE Champions passing through its doors.
The Reality Era (March 24 2014-April 30 2016)
The Reality Era may have been short but it represented an important shift for WWE. For some time, the company had been butting heads with its fans, who had been vocal about the matter of who they wanted to see spotlighted. The Reality Era saw WWE draw back the curtain just a touch more – with the WWE Network streaming service having debuted in February of 2014, fans were allowed greater access to the company’s video vault and more frank openness about the scripted and produced nature of the business. Of course, WWE being more open with their fans didn’t necessarily mean they cared what their opinions were. Roman Reigns rose to the top of the card in a move fans resisted as they greatly preferred plucky underdog Daniel Bryan. But Roman, we would soon learn, was going nowhere. NXT, meanwhile, under the guidance of Triple H and legendary 70s and 80s mainstay Dusty Rhodes, quickly became the favourite of fans wanting a bit more “wrestling” in their wrestling.
The New Era (May 1 2016-July 22 2022)
As winner of the All-Time Worst Name For An Era Award, the New Era saw new stars get rotated to the top of the card. The three members of the Shield became focal points of the company – and Dean Ambrose, now wrestling under his real name of Jon Moxley, would later become a focal point of All Elite Wrestling, AEW. NXT’s favouring of wrestling talent over flashy characters contrasted with Raw and SmackDown, WWE’s two main brands. Becky Lynch would break barriers by airing her character’s frustrations, becoming the top star in the company for a time. Then the world broke! With most of the planet under lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic, WWE had to change tack and presented its programming in the “Thunderdome” in three locations in Florida, where each week wrestlers would perform to crowds of literally zeroes of people. While one of the most surreal times in wrestling history, this period finally gave Vince McMahon chance to push Roman Reigns to the top of the card unimpeded. After all, if there were no audiences, who was going to boo him? Well, to be fair, since Roman had turned heel, probably loads of people. As leader of the Bloodline, Roman asserted his birthright to the WWE Championship, first winning the WWE Universal Championship in August of 2020, then the WWE Championship itself in April of 2022. The Bloodline storyline is one of professional wrestling’s greatest, one of its most emotionally charged and very probably its longest.
The Paul Levesque era (July 23 2022-Present)
In 2022, in the wake of a series of scandals coming to light, Vince McMahon stepped down from WWE before formally retiring the following year. Taking his place in charge of the company’s creative division was McMahon’s son-in-law Paul Levesque – the former Triple H. Triple H’s booking style favours long-term storytelling and intertwining plot threads, meaning fans after a short-term fix are often left wanting, but months-long viewing often yields sweeter fruits. In April 2024, Cody Rhodes, having helped set up AEW, finally ended Roman Reigns’ run with the WWE Championship and became the new face of WWE. With women’s wrestling now more popular in WWE than ever before, however, almost inarguably the company’s top star is Rhea Ripley, the metalhead Australian bruiser who lives by the code of Brutality – almost the polar opposite of the values Rhodes’ character lives by. With Roman and Seth Rollins still atop the card and the return of CM Punk in late 2023, Levesque has proven he can pull off magic – but increased scrutiny following WWE’s sale to Endeavour, forming parent company TKO, means the former Cerebral Assassin can never rest on his laurels for too long. Wrestling fans are always hungry for more, after all…