WWE is in the middle of a hot streak. From shattering attendance records on a consistent basis to putting on jaw-dropping matches nearly every week, the company can't seem to lose right now. And as the "the wild age known as the Attitude Era.

Are Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns as big as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and The Rock in of star power? Does "Yeet!" hold a candle to "Suck It!" in the pantheon of great wrestling taunts? Can we even mention TV ratings comparisons now that WWE has been paid literal billions of dollars to take its flagship show off of cable? These are the kind of debates that will rage on years from now.

But there's one area where modern WWE can definitively pull ahead of the Attitude Era as early as WrestleMania 41, simply by targeting one of the Attitude Era's greatest weak spots. Because, as even the most die-hard Attitude Era will it, if there's one thing WWE couldn't get right during that time period, it was consistently booking WrestleMania.

All But One Of The WrestleManias From The Attitude Era Were Disappointments

For All The WWE Did Right At The Time, It Often Stumbled When Trying To Book "The Showcase of The Immortals"

For the sake of argument, let's say the Attitude Era officially began with the "Montreal Screwjob" at Survivor Series 1997 and ended in mid-2002. Let's look at the five WrestleManias in that window of time:

• WrestleMania XIV: Culturally important and a crucial turning point in the Monday Night Wars thanks to Mike Tyson's involvement and the crowning of Steve Austin as the company's next top star. But it's a one-match card and Austin himself has stated publicly he hated his main-event match with Shawn Michaels for being so "lackluster."
• WrestleMania XV: A skippable show with the weakest of the Austin vs. Rock matches.
• WrestleMania 2000: Home of the “A McMahon in Every Corner” debacle, which was immediately outshined by Backlash less than a month later.
• WrestleMania X-Seven: The gold standard by which all other WrestleManias are compared to. It’s the obvious exception, though some still argue it also killed the era with Austin's heel turn.
• WrestleMania X8: A two-match card best known for picking the wrong main event.

The current WWE product already has one solid WrestleMania in the bag. WrestleMania XL not only delivered the fist-pumping climactic finale of Cody Rhodes finally dethroning Roman Reigns in an Avengers: Endgame-esque main event, but it managed to fill the rest of the two-night card with solid action. Of the 14 matches on the show, the only true disappointment was Jey Uso vs. Jimmy Uso. A strong follow-up at WrestleMania 41 would give the "Triple H Era" two strong WrestleManias in back-to-back years compared to the Attitude Era's one in half a decade.

Why Is It Hard to Book A WrestleMania When The WWE Is Succeeding?

It's Hard To Get Wrong, But Even Harder To Get Right

But let's not be too hard on WWE's booking from the Attitude Era. As WWE's creative team is currently learning, trying to book the biggest show of the year when your company is on a hot streak isn't as easy as it looks. When a wrestling promotion has a roster full of stars all generating strong emotional reactions from fans, it’s hard to book a big show poorly. Fans will be invested on some level no matter what you do. But at the same time, it’s also hard to book a big show correctly because you’ll inevitably have major names left out of marquee matches.

Just look at WrestleMania 41’s current storylines. If the plan really is Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena (as rumored) and Gunther vs. Jey Uso in the main events, what’s left for Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, CM Punk, the remaining of The Bloodline and Drew McIntyre? Even the rumor of slotting in McIntyre vs. Damian Priest was met with frustration online because it meant "The Scottish Warrior" would be nowhere near the main event scene after just completing the best year of his career.

Having bona fide stars up and down the roster was one of the reasons why the Attitude Era was so successful and why every episode of WWE Raw felt like a must-see event. But when it came time to book the biggest show of the year, it often felt like WWE was trying to throw as many people onto the card as possible, regardless of how much (or little) thought was put into their matches or storylines. WWE tends to be much more selective with its booking these days. Pay-per-views are shorter with fewer matches, and while championships aren't changing hands every month, there's at least the promise of storyline progression every time. These shows never feel obligatory, and even at their worst they never feel like a waste of time.

Barring some sort of disaster, WrestleMania 41 will not make or break the "Triple H Era." But to have a definitive victory over the era that every incarnation of WWE has since been compared to could be a louder statement than any broken attendance record. Let's see if they can pull it off.