The Attitude Era.  WWF's halcyon days, days of risqué raunchiness, charismatic stars, violent matches and shocking, must-watch television.  The era many older fans look back on with fondness while shaking their heads at today's family-orientated product.  The era younger fans eagerly hunt out snippets from on DVD and YouTube, looking for a touch of legendary greatness that seems so graphic and compelling when viewed over a decade later.  If any period of professional wrestling deserves a retrospective collection, to capture for fans new and old a time when lightning was captured in a bottle, the Attitude Era is surely it.  Unfortunately, The Attitude Era, a new three disc set from WWE, isn't that collection.

The first disc kicks off with the usual hour-long soft-focus WWE documentary with a few other odds and ends bonus features. The next two discs attempt to show the highlights and milestones of the era in chronological order, starting with Mike Tyson joining Degeneration X in March 1988, and ending with an epic six-man Hell in a Cell match from Armageddon in December 2000.  Unfortunately, this standard WWE presentation just doesn't work for this subject matter.

The documentary makes a few half-hearted feints at attempting to explain what the Attitude Era was and what made it work, but keeps coming up short with an almost shrugged "America was changing and we changed with it."  Also distracting are uncomfortable attempts to spread modern corporate WWE's smile and sheen over the top of the subject matter. 

Mention of anything shocking or controversial are almost immediately followed by someone (often the family friendly Mick Foley) repeating that at times they went too far.  Lita and Trish Stratus are mentioned as tough women who changed what it "meant to be a Diva" but the visuals are of Sable and her painted-on bikini. 

The documentary leaves one with the sense that WWE doesn't feel entirely comfortable with even its recent past, and as a result punches are pulled and the hour finishes without you feeling like you've actually learned anything interesting about the Era it was supposed to illustrate.

The second and third discs suffer from lack of context.  Putting together a collection of matches and promos for a three disc set that's all about one superstar makes sense; because it lets you see how someone grows and develops their character and their in-ring abilities over time.  But when you're trying to capture a period of time containing dozens of larger-than-life characters, and scores of legendary promos and storylines and fondly remembered matches WWE's usual method of presentation just doesn't work. 

Worse, all the constant swerves and double-crosses that make up a lot of the Attitude Era's milestone moments become meaningless when stripped of the whys and wherefores of the characters' actions.  Too often the reaction to hearing Jim Ross screech "what the hell is going on?!" isn't to share in his shock, but to shake your head in confusion and ask the exclamation as a serious question.

This set could easily have been so much better, if only WWE had used a different structure. The Best of RAW: 15th Anniversary set, for example, took the viewer on a journey by linking together clips and matches with explanations and documentary context, creating an enjoyably interesting nine-hour journey through RAW from 1993 to 2008.  A similar approach with The Attitude Era set would've worked wonders.

It's not all a write off, though, because most fans will find something of interest on the second or third discs.  For example, a Lion's Den Match from SummerSlam 1998 that saw Owen Hart face Ken Shamrock in a MMA-style cage and a four corners match for the WWF Tag Team Championship from a 1998 episode of RAW (featuring Undertaker, Steve Austin, Kane, Mankind, The Rock, D-Lo Brown, Billy Gunn and Road Dogg) are highlights from the second disc. 

And from the third disc we get to see the wonder that was Rikishi diving onto Val Venis from the top of a steel cage, and the legendarily violent six-man Hell in a Cell match for the WWF Championship at 2000's Armageddon pay-per-view.  We also get to see Triple H's "wedding" to a comatose Stephanie McMahon and Mae Young birthing a hand in full. As they say, your mileage may vary.

But the highlights - those that are still enjoyable after being robbed of context or any kind of explanation - are few compared to a seemingly random splatter of not-quite iconic Attitude Era moments and matches.

The Attitude Era - both this three disc set and the three year period - deserved better.

The Attitude Era is available now through Shock Entertainment, on DVD and through iTunes.