Thread 19099671

>Elements of Attitude had already been forming in the earlier half of 1997 but after SummerSlam you can see a lot of the New Gen stuff start to get phased out for good afterwards
>I have previously heard Canadian Stampede being a very well received PPV prior to this, and it honestly overrated for me, but the main event was very good nonetheless, a 5 v 5 tag match between The Hart Foundation vs Austin, Shamrock, Goldust, and LoD, an action packed 24 minute barnburner where several ongoing feuds all happened all at the same time, it helped that the crowd was extremely loud for this match, the sight of the entire extended Hart family coming together in the ring at the very end of the PPV after victory was very cute, but kinda depressing at the same time because of whats going to happen to them in the next few years
>Rocky Maivia turns heel and joins the NoD in August, and you can tell he's already developed the gimmick to a T that would propel him into stardom for the rest of his life, almost all of his catchphrases and mannerisms are already there

>SummerSlam was a good show overall, the opening steel cage between Helmsley and Mankind, which is awesome btw, go watch it even if its nowhere near the quality of what they were gonna pull off in 2000
>Bulldog vs Shamrock ended when Smith deliberately DQ'd himself, which would have been a boring outcome I would not mention if Shamrock didn't snap and choked him out halfway to death, which he got a VERY LOUD reception for, I feel like it was a missed opportunity for WWF to not do anything with that at all, prior to this he was just a traditional good guy who fights for what's right, and after this, they kept him that way, they could have switched his gimmick to a blood knight type who would go mental at the heels
>Bret vs Taker is MOTN, especially with the added drama of shawn as guest ref, this is probably taker's first ever truly great singles match after 7 years of being a slow, but kinda boring giant in the ring

1997 doesn't deserve to be slept on

>Of course I can't not mention Austin vs Owen, which was a decent match until the infamous piledriver botch, JR played it great, he immediately saw that his neck got fucked but didn't freak out and just called it as he normally would, Austin then did what was probably the worst roll-up ever done and won
>For the rest of the year Austin would barely wrestle and if he did it would be very short, it was smart of the WWF to still keep him on TV to do nothing but cut promos and stun some unfortunate victim, as it still kept him extremely popular
>one odd new wrestler that debuted in mid 1997 was The Patriot, a masked all loving american hero who will ways fight for whats right, an unusually family-friendly gimmick considering at this point more and more adult themes had seeped through the TV programming, but he actually got quite favorable reacts from the crowd, as he was immediately put into a main event feud with the Anti-American Bret Hart, the most notable thing about him is that he actually was given the exact same theme song as Kurt Angle's, which was a whiplash for me to watch in real time

>>19099770
im pretty sure 1997 was one of the historically important years in North American wrestling, WCW was at the height of its popularity and this is the year where the WWF started ushering in the Attitude Era, so many crazy shit happened in both companies all in one year, its no wonder the second wrestling boom started here

>>19099770
It's better than dogshit 1999. Russo going to WCW saved wrestling.

>Ground Zero is a boring ass PPV, the card was so boring that i started skipping through most of the event, and was glad I did because it really wasn't worth sitting all the way to
>Vader turned face on RAW at this time, but can't recall when, I just know it happened in September, from this point on he's actually getting really loud cheers from the crowd
>after the SummerSlam main event, the accidental chairshot effectively turned Shawn heel and simply started owning it in the promos, he joins up with Hunter and Chyna (and Rick Rude is in there as well for some reason) to form a new group, a Bret promo had him call his group a bunch of degenerates and from the point on he and Hunter called their new stable D-Generation X, and they really did start acting as raunchy and as immature as they could get away with after the new name was established

>>19099827
> For the rest of the year Austin would barely wrestle and if he did it would be very short, it was smart of the WWF to still keep him on TV to do nothing but cut promos and stun some unfortunate victim, as it still kept him extremely popular
This is one of those things they absolutely would not do in modern wrestling. That botched piledriver couldn't hide the severity of the injury, and the crowds weren't smark dominant enough to try and beg the company to take him off the road.

>>19099671 (OP)
good taste, 97 really was a great year for wrestling. both major feds were cooking, Japan was still hot, there was a great mix of old and new talent, and a lot of new things were being attempted.

>remember when Austin was going around and stunning literally everybody earlier, well, announcers and commentators weren't spared from that, Michael Cole, Jim Ross, and crucially...
>the September 22nd episode is historic, they hyped this one particular episode in the weeks leading up to this, almost like it's own special event, the first RAW taking place in MSG, two notable moments happened here, Foley's Cactus Jack debuts in the WWF, leading to the New York crowd chanting ECW for good measure after the awesome segment where both Mankind and Dude Love were talking to each other, and the other is Austin giving McMahon his first of many stunners, the crowd fucking POPPED for that moment, its probably the loudest crowd response of the year, additional points to Vince flopping around like a fish afterwards
>In the weeks leading up to Badd Blood, the Hell in a Cell was suddenly introduced as a stipulation for the Shawn vs Taker rematch, oddly, there was very little hype to the cell itself, from the presentation, it just looks like it was a larger Steel Cage and nothing else, I don't even recall it having a no DQs

>Pillman and a (face) Goldust were in a wack ass feud, involving Pillman wrestling in a dress, and also Pillman winning his right to use Dustin's IRL wife and on-screen valet Marlena as his sex slave for 30 days, the storyline was just fucking wild as hell, but the feud had to sadly get cut short when Pillman died at the day of their next match, in RAW after the PPV, Vince interviewed the widow where he not so subtly shifted the blame from anything to do with the hazards of pro wrestling like the steroids, the physical toll of the business itself, and the medications he was hooked up on, to his undiagnosed heart issues
>The first ever Hell in a Cell in an all-time classic, I can see why people loved this match so much, Shawn was amazing as the guy taking most of the nasty bumps the cell made possible, and even getting busted open while Taker raised hell on him (pun intended) for those 30 minutes, the Kane debut was just the cherry on top, this is pretty much the only thing that stopped Badd Blood from being complete filler as the rest of the undercard was unremarkable

>Survivor Series 97 was boring, Austin got his IC title back from Owen in just 4 minutes, and then the infamous incident happened...
>Main event was Bret vs Shawn for the WWF title, the two brawled outside of the ring before the match even started, with several officials and Vince himself telling them to just get back in the ring and start the match proper, JR acknowledged on commentary the backstage drama between them the match itself was actually pretty decent for two people that fucking hated each other for real, the crowd signs on this event was also something to note, many of the signs were variations of calling HBK a faggot, while some fans were aware that Bret was going to WCW after this, expressing their disappointment at him, then while Bret was locked in a sharpshooter, you can hear Vince screaming "RING THE BELL, RING THE FUCKING BELL" so loud that the microphones caught it clearly, the ref called the match in shawn's favor and snatched the championship, he and Hunter immediately booked it out of the arena in the final minutes of the PPV as Bret was seen on camera spitting on Vince.

>In the aftermath, the Hart Foundation was effectively dissolved, Bret, Bulldog, and Neidhart left, while Owen also seems to have left as well
>the RAW after survivor series was oddly tamer than you would expect, the crowd wasn't as loud as you would for just witnessing the second most controversial on screen moment in WWE history, life seemingly continued as normal, there were also segments dedicated to Vince explaining himself to JR for what went down that night, saying that Bret refused to do business with him and he was forced to do what he had to do, "Bret screwed Bret" was the message, Vince stopped being an on-screen character afterwards.
>After Pillman cut the feud short, Dustin turned heel on his own family and divorced his wife on the spot while being interviewed a moment that felt way too horrifyingly realistic to be in a wrestling show, this marked the start of "The Artist Known as Goldust" arc where he would come out in one of the most disgusting outfits he possibly could wear every RAW, it was sickening to watch, but it was extremely effective in repulsing both the audience and his opponents.
>they had Cornette do some shoot promos in the middle of Raw out of nowhere for some reason, shitting on the NWO, Eric Bischoff, Hogan, Nash, and even the WWF itself in the last Raw of 1997.
>Dec 15th episode of RAW would also be pivotal, the first ever "Scratch logo" was shown in a video package just before the Survivor Series main event, but this is where is where it became official, another key moment was the "Cure For the Common Show" promo by Vince McMahon, directly announcing to the audience of more changes to the content of WWF TV, the very first time WWF officially acknowledge how much different their programming had shifted in tone over the course of the year, some people say this is where the Attitude Era officially starts, and I can see why, its the explicit statement of support from the chairman himself that the Adult-oriented content is the way to go

>>19099869
Nice headcanon