Who are these wrestlers?

I was flipping through the channels today and I came across WWE Smackdown. I've been out of the loop for awhile, so I have no idea who is the champ or what the story lines are. This just led me to think...how good was wrestling 10-20 years ago?

Who can forget Hogan vs The Ultimate Warrior at the Skydome? The crowd was electric as the Warrior Gorilla-slammed the Hulkster. Or how about years earlier when The Hulkster body-slammed Andre the Giant? The 80's also brought forth some of the most creative characters like The Macho Man, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, Jake the Snake Roberts...and even the Brooklyn Brawler, the lovable wrestler who always lost on Saturday morning wrestling.

The 90's was where my interest really peaked. That was the WWF Attitude Era. Not even now, have I seen the charisma and entertainment value that Stone Cold and definitely The Rock displayed week after week. I remember attending a live event in Toronto, the lights went dim, then all of a sudden we heard..."If ya smelllllll, what The Rock, is cooking!". That's one of the few times that I leapt out of my seat at the ACC (and this includes Raptor games). A couple of weeks ago, I even played an old PS2 game (Smackdown vs RAW 2006) and playing as the Rock was so fun. The People's Elbow! The Rock Bottom! Wrestling in the 90's was a good time. This isn't even mentioning the legend Bret Hart, the always entertaining DX and the still jaw-dropping TLC matches from The Dudleys/Hardy Boyz/Edge & Christian.

The 90's were also home to WCW and who can forget the nWo? Their storylines were so unique at the time and drew everyone in. This also led to the transformation of Sting, who I still think was one of the coolest characters there.

But alas, wrestling started to go downhill, at least to me it did. I'm not sure if it was because I grew older or that the entertainment value just wasn't there anymore. Well, wherever wrestling goes in the future, we'll always have the past to reminisce. Check out YouTube for a quick fix of classic wrestling; maybe Rock vs Hogan at Wrestlemania? Or the aforementioned TLC matches? Or how about Bob Bauckland mentally snapping and pulling the Chicken-Wing on unsuspecting foes? Ah wrestling, fun times.