Chris Jericho believes today’s wrestling has no shortage of talent but simply can’t match the depth of legitimate main event draws that WWE boasted during the Attitude Era.
In a recent interview with TheSportster, the veteran looked back on the roster he walked into when he arrived in WWE in 1999, rattling off names like The Rock, Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Mankind, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Kane, and Big Show.
“When I got to WWE, there were legit, I’d say, 12 legit top-drawing main event stars. Not just guys who worked in the main event—top draws.
The Rock, Stone Cold, Undertaker, Mankind, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit. And that’s just off the top of my head. Kane. There’s nine right there off the top of my head without even really thinking too much about it. There’s probably three or four others that I could throw in there.
Big Show—there’s 10 right there. That shows you that there’s a lot of great talent in wrestling today, but main event stars, main event draws, main event, like, almost iconic characters that are still super popular today because of that timeframe—we don’t have that now.
You have a lot more eyeballs on it because of platforms and streaming, but if you look at the main event names then, they can’t be touched.
So that’s probably why that era is so critically acclaimed and so positively remembered, because of just the name value of those stars that were all there at the same time.”
Despite the comparison, Jericho doesn’t view today’s product as commercially weaker. In 2024, he stated that the industry had never generated more money, though he acknowledged the Attitude Era carried far greater mainstream buzz.
Jericho made his WWE debut on September 8, 1999, famously interrupting The Rock in front of roughly 14,000 fans in Chicago. He would go on to become the first wrestler to unify the WWE and WCW Championships.
Jericho is currently signed to AEW, having inked a new multi-year deal with the promotion.