WWE has gone through many phases in the company’s life. The WWE Hall of Fame is a yearly tradition now, but there were years when the company did not honor the past as it does today. Nostalgia dollars are still pouring in for Vince McMahon’s company, but there was a time during the Attitude Era when those traditions were not upheld.
Brian Solomon worked for WWE from 2000-2007 as a writer and editor for WWE’s publications like WWE Magazine. He was recently on the 6:05 Superpodcast with Brian Last and he revealed why the company started holding their Hall of Fame ceremony once again.
“That’s part of what made them bring back the Hall of Fame. That was part of that shift. By the time you get to that period, and I don’t know, maybe Hogan coming back might have been an early impetus to start to get into the nostalgia market, but they did bring back The Hall of Fame. That’s very telling what they did. They abandoned The Hall of Fame exactly when the Attitude Era began. Part of why they were going for The Hall of Fame initially in the ‘90s was because the business wasn’t going well. They were trying to mine the nostalgia to get things going, and when they felt like they didn’t need it anymore, they abandoned it. Then when business went down again, they went back to the idea of making money off nostalgia.”
It is interesting that the company stopped their yearly tradition of honoring the past while business was booming during the Attitude Era. Then they realized the importance of those nostalgia dollars. Now the company enjoys a steady cash-flow while capitalizing on that nostalgia money by using Superstars who were featured during the Attitude Era.
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