>These Raws after WrestleMania give me hope that if they
>wanted to, they could bring in an Attitude Era, Pt. 2. Back
>then they let the crowd decide who were the faces and who were
>the heels. WWE didn't decide to turn Steve Austin face, he was
>a straight up BAD GUY that the fans LOVED. Crowd's like last
>night, if only they could be at every Raw, cheering the guys
>who deserve it (Ziggler this year, Bryan last year) and boo
>the guys we're tired of.
>
>LISTEN TO THE CROWD, VINCE. LISTEN.

they've forgotten what made the Attitude Era what it was. It wasn't all the Russo, crazy storyline bullshit (though that did help)... it was the personalities. And that was largely drawn from crowd reaction and a little bit of improvisation.

WWE actually has a tremendous amount of personalities that are being held down by booking from the 1980s. I don't think there are many on the roster regularly shown on the TV, main event and undercard that don't have that potential. Even "Vince"-brand hosses like Sheamus.

But what they are doing with Cena is some bullshit; Cena has been Rocky Maivia circa 1996 forever it seems. Granted, he did "earn" his spot (and WWE has been generally good with not "Brocking" their talent). I thought at first he could potentially be the next "Rock" with his flair for comedy and hilarious gimmick, his ability to improvise on the fly.

But as soon as he got the gold, WWE whittled everything that was interesting about him down into the reviled face of the "PG Era" among a section of fans. Much like they did with The Rock (even going back to his Rocky Maivia days on commercially-released videos after the fact), they pumped in crowd cheers that clearly were not there.

Now a "PG" product isn't the issue. Like I said, the Attitude Era is actually a painful watch outside of some of the midcard and the main event. Those fans at MetLife reminded me a great deal of it; chanting "Sexual Chocolate" at Mark Henry, among other things.

The signs of a Cena turn are there. Will WWE finally do it, is the question.

Rocky Maivia became "The Rock" after a whole year or so of "Rocky Sucks" (they even used to flash the chant on the screen). RVD would have been destined for "Not-WWF Burial" coming over from the ashes of ECW years ago, if not for the crowd reaction. Back then the crowd had a heavy "homegrown" bias in which newcomers from other feds had to overcome, but RVD was over just by entering the ring. ECW guys tended to have a bit of a "cult" following of "EC-Dub" chants, but RVD? Sheeeeeeeit. He was the most over of anyone in WWE when he debuted. I still think they fucked up not letting him beat Brock (at least it was through Heyman cheating on Brock's behalf).

That just came to mind because on a home video of The Rock where they included a Raw match between him and RVD... they pumped in "Rocky" chants which just were not there.

Vince is just too stubborn.