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- Starting as Capitol Wrestling Corporation in 1953 and later becoming the global giant that is the WWE, the promotion has seen its fair share of different eras that were a product of their time and feature names that led the promotion as the top stars. Looking back on all these different moments in the company's history, fans tend to gravitate toward either what they grew up with or watched more prominently. Now with more information about the current WWE happening and adding more context to the past eras, let's rank every era of the WWE against each other and see what stands the test of time as the best overall.
Highlights
- WWE's history is marked by Vince McMahon's ambition to expand the company beyond its original confines in New York, leading to the creation of a national-turned-international brand.
- Every era of WWE has its own unique appeal, with fans gravitating towards the one that made them the happiest, but the entertainment value varies.
- The current New Era of WWE has struggled to live up to expectations, with lackluster storylines and inconsistent booking, but the in-ring wrestling quality remains consistently great.
The history of WWE has seen Vince McMahon taking the company in drastically different directions throughout the years. McMahon gaining power in the early ‘80s created the current version of WWE as a national-turned-international company and global brand. The old days of just having shows in New York were long gone due to Vince wanting to expand beyond his father’s goals.
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WWE would see seven different eras from the early ‘80s to the current day. Each chapter has an argument for being the best due to fans usually gravitating towards which era made them happiest. The changes would see McMahon looking to truly embrace different sides of the presentation. Every era of WWE will be ranked according to the overall entertainment value from the time and how it holds up compared to the others.
UPDATE: 2023/10/07 14:30 EST BY ETHAN SCHLABAUGH
Starting as Capitol Wrestling Corporation in 1953 and later becoming the global giant that is the WWE, the promotion has seen its fair share of different eras that were a product of their time and feature names that led the promotion as the top stars. Looking back on all these different moments in the company's history, fans tend to gravitate toward either what they grew up with or watched more prominently. Now with more information about the current WWE happening and adding more context to the past eras, let's rank every era of the WWE against each other and see what stands the test of time as the best overall.
7 The New Era (2016 - Present)
Start Date | End Date | Notable Stars |
|---|---|---|
May 1st, 2016 | Present | Roman Reigns, Becky Lynch Charlotte Flair, Seth Rollins |
WWE is currently using the New Era as the term to describe the past few years of the product. One of the biggest recent changes came with the 2016 brand split to have Raw and Smackdown as separate shows. There was a lot of optimism in the early years, but WWE has not lived up to those expectations. Positive moments include the women’s evolution leading to new stars like Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks. But WWE has struggled to create many more top names with their male counterparts as most seem secondary to Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. Things have gotten sloppier than any other era with the lackluster storylines and inconsistent booking.
When watching even just an hour of the modern-day WWE product, it is easy to see that a lot of the passion has been zapped. In the past, fans would be seen jumping up and down in the crowd, roaring at the top of their lungs, but now, much of the audience sits unmoved in their seats, having to watch several minutes of recap footage about something they saw just ten minutes prior, before viewing a match which has been seen three out of the past five weeks. There is a distinct lack of creativity in storylines, with it being a stretch to even brand them as storylines. However, the in-ring quality, when it is given time, is one of the most consistent in history. Whilst emotion and storytelling may not be a priority, the bell-to-bell wrestling is great, with the roster housing some of the best performers on the planet. Unfortunately, they aren’t often given good content to work with, which is a crying shame. With a change in management and a merger with the UFC, the future of the WWE has never been so uncertain and is leaving fans on the edge of their seats to see what might just come next.
6 The Golden Era (1982 -1993)
Start Date | End Date | Notable Stars |
|---|---|---|
1982 | June 13, 1993 | Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant, Curt Hennig, Roddy Piper, The Ultimate Warrior |
The big expansion of WWE took place during the Golden Age when Hulk Hogan became the face of the company. Vince McMahon’s vision of a character like Hogan leading the way, and the concept of WrestleMania creating a new business model, helped WWE grow to a force never before seen in wrestling. Characters like Hogan, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, and Ultimate Warrior led the company to great success. However, it is hard to compare the Golden Age to other eras since there were so few important matches and events per year. Hogan rarely defended the title and WWE mostly had squash matches making this era less celebrated than others.
During the Golden Age, WWE expanded into developing larger-than-life superstars which helped boost the product to a wider level, with WrestleMania being brought into existence, which is certainly enough to stake a claim at this being one of the most integral stages in the company’s existence. However, the overall quality, aside from the immense popularity of the biggest stars, did lack quite a lot. The focus was on wrestlers who would hit the simplest of moves, but get the biggest reactions, and whilst that was a formula that worked, it meant that the lower card suffered tremendously, even with many talented performers, and some not-so-talented ones too. Even with WrestleMania, the company had much more room and time to grow, and it would continue to do so.
5 The Reality Era (2014 - 2016)
Start Date | End Date | Notable Stars |
|---|---|---|
March 24th, 2014 | May 1st, 2016 | Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins |
The shortest era for WWE came from 2014 to 2016 in the form of the Reality Era. WWE embraced the reality in storylines like Daniel Bryan rising to the top due to fans demanding it. Other stars like AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, and The Shield broke out to make WWE feel fresher than it had in many years. WWE had quite a few defining moments during this short time like Brock Lesnar ending The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak and all three Shield members winning gold. The biggest downfall of the Reality Era, however, was it ending too soon with WWE losing touch with that style in the New Era.
Just before the “Reality Era” began, WWE’s product was experiencing somewhat of a lull, and the change of focus to new names brought about a completely rejuvenated feeling about television. The reign of The Authority on top may have felt like a pain at the time, but looking back, it brought about some hugely enjoyable moments with names such as Seth Rollins and Daniel Bryan. Unfortunately, not every popular name was capitalized on, and bad booking crept its way in between the cracks, making it not entirely perfect. The ever-constant push of Roman Reigns at a time when fans wanted anything but him and the over-reliance on part-timers like Brock Lesnar to hold belts and not even appear on most PPVs were heavily criticized.
4 The New Generation Era (1993 - 1997)
Start Date | End Date | Notable Stars |
|---|---|---|
June 13, 1993 | December 15th, 1997 | Kevin Nash, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Owen Hart, The Undertaker, Yokozuna |
Vince McMahon realized that changes were needed when the company was under fire during the steroid trials. Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage were at the end of their WWE runs when McMahon put his eggs in the basket of new stars like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Razor Ramon, and Yokozuna. Michaels and Hart were viewed as the top two stars of the New Generation Era that improved the in-ring quality of WWE. The matches to take place in the New Generation Era were dramatically better than that of the Golden Age. WWE did struggle to build new characters quickly, but they thrived by setting up a brighter future with this movement.
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WWE’s comeback from controversy and near dissolution is the clearest evidence that you can never count Vince McMahon out from turning things around. After a year or so of completely unenthused content, the focus on new names and more focused storytelling brought about a wave of renewed interest and popularity. The match quality shot upward, and this would prove to be a great precursor to perhaps WWE’s greatest-ever era. Most fans look back on the New Generation era poorly due to WWE reaching all-time lows in viewership, weekly ratings, and money just pouring out of the promotion. But as mentioned, this did lay the groundwork for not only the best time for WWE later on, but also gave people like Eric Bischoff the idea to make WCW more realistic and branch away from the cartoony characters that were ever present in the early 90s.
3 The PG Era (2008 - 2014)
Start Date | End Date | Notable Stars |
|---|---|---|
July 22, 2008 | March 24th, 2014 | CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Randy Orton |
The PG Era is viewed as polarizing due to the biggest change in the 'TV-PG' rating. WWE abandoned the TV-14 guidelines to try to appeal to the family-friendly audience and it worked. John Cena was the face of the company throughout this run with countless classic matches against Edge, Batista, and many others. WWE also gave the spotlight to new stars in the main event picture with strong results. Jeff Hardy becoming a main eventer and CM Punk’s Summer of Punk were two of the highlights of this time. The Undertaker’s best WrestleMania matches also took place in the PG Era due to having better stories.
The PG Era is widely thought to be the downfall of WWE, but during that time, ratings were still incredibly high, the company had a lot of mainstream attention, and the roster was full of legitimate stars and future legends. Weekly TV was adapted to fit a more family-friendly audience, which wasn’t ideal for a lot of fans, but there were still plenty of long-term stories and fantastic matches, with the era perhaps getting a stricter rap that it deserves. PPVs such as WrestleMania and the Royal Rumble felt bigger and bigger as years went by, with the PG Era helping to put Mania in bigger stadiums all around the continent.
2 The Ruthless Aggression Era (2002 - 2008)
Start Date | End Date | Notable Stars |
|---|---|---|
June 24th, 2002 | July 22, 2008 | John Cena, Batista, Trish Stratus, The Undertaker, Triple H, Kurt Angle |
WWE found a way to bring many strong aspects of the product together during the Ruthless Aggression, Era. This was a rare time when Vince McMahon named the era on television. The movement led to names like John Cena, Batista, Randy Orton, and Brock Lesnar debuting and eventually hitting their goal as top stars. The Undertaker and Triple H continued to thrive in the new time and had arguably the most successful chapters of their respective careers, and even the unsung heroes of the company like Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, and Edge received main event runs. WWE starting the brand split was a huge success and helped make the Ruthless Aggression Era a special time in company history.
RELATED: 10 WWE Gimmicks That Didn't Fit The Era They Were Present In
There were several great things about the Ruthless Aggression Era, with the wrestling quality being at a consistent high, the stories being full of grit and intensity, and a direct focus on building up new stars that would help carry the company for years to come. Many names from previous eras adapted perfectly to fit within this new regime, with everything coming together following the brand split, with Raw and Smackdown feeling like two different entities, offering fans the chance to see so many huge established stars, but also many new ones. The company also had the benefit of riding high after the biggest period in its history after the Attitude Era and used that momentum to push those aforementioned names like Cena and Lesnar to incredible heights that can rival that of legends like Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan.
1 The Attitude Era (1997 - 2002)
Start Date | End Date | Notable Stars |
|---|---|---|
December 15th, 1997 | June 24th, 2002 | Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker, Kane, Triple H, Mick Foley |
The success of WWE was so strong during the Attitude Era that it became an impossible task to argue against it. Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Mick Foley, and The Undertaker were just the first historic names to thrive in the main event scene at this time. WWE having both Austin and Rock was the only time two stars of that magnitude were leading the same era. Other company areas like the tag division were more vital than ever with the Hardy Boyz, Dudley Boyz, and Edge & Christian leading the way. The Attitude Era did have some abysmal storylines and tough shows to watch in 1999 especially, but the talent always made it interesting. WWE had an all-star lineup of talent creating the strongest impact in mainstream pop culture and because of how segmented and "niche-ified" entertainment is nowadays, WWE will likely never be as hot in the "mainstream" pop culture as they were here.
The match quality might have not been the best and paled in comparison to the in-ring action that the future eras, like the Ruthless Aggression or Reality Era, ushered in. As mentioned, storylines weren't always the best and fans had to deal with things like Beaver Cleavage and Mae Young birthing a hand. Despite all of this, fans were still heavily invested with countless eyes clued to their television set every Monday to see what was happening during the Monday Night Wars between WCW and WWE. Even today the company still relies on the usage of these big names like The Rock returning every once in a while or Stone Cold Steve Austin getting a second chance at a retirement match against Kevin Owens at WrestleMania.
