by Antonio Lopez

Created on: June 21, 2009   Last Updated: July 06, 2009

Before we answer the question, why don't we look at where WWE was just a few years ago? It was at it's peak during the attitude era, and it was steadily rising during the golden era. During the years of 1999 and 2001, WWE was achieving ratings of 7.0 + weekly. Now, that is something that is completely out of reach. At the moment, WWE's best ratings tend to be the occasional 4.0 for WWE's Raw.

So we must ask ourselves, "Why exactly were the ratings just so large back then?" Well, it's pretty simple. WWE was just simply more entertaining at the time. With big name such as Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, WWE was at the apex of it's existence. These two men are probably was allowed the WWE to get such a high rating. At the time, these two had some of the best microphone skills that anybody could have.

The Rock spoke without any fear of saying the wrong thing, and when he did say the wrong thing he kept going nevertheless. His character was just so flexible, that it could work both as a face or as a heel. As a face, The Rock would play with the crowd and even go on to call himself, "The People's Champ" in order to say that he represents the people and he is doing all of this for them. As a heel, The Rock would go on to insult face characters such as The Hurricane (which is something his face persona did, except he would step it up with the insults and insult some in the audience). Almost everybody that you would ask, would tell you that The Rock is simply better as a heel. He was outright entertaining. He was an asshole to the crowd, but about half of them loved being insulted. He always had a mixed reaction, and that's always good with WWE characters. In addition to that, The Rock showcased his seemingly infinite amounts of charisma to the crowd and just got them excited for whatever it was that was coming. Sure, The Rock may not be the greatest wrestler in the world (in terms of wrestling) but what separates him from the rest is that he was just so outgoing and got the crowd involved with his theatrics.

Stone Cold Steve Austin is also another name that comes to mind whenever you mention the attitude era. This man not only took the WWE by storm, but he eventually became the face of WWE. When you compare The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, the latter tends to get a better and positive reaction. The reason for this is because The Rock could have kept going with his WWE career but decided to ditch it and head on to movies. Stone Cold Steve Austin on

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