Hi Scott,
It's silly to suggest the current state of the WWE (PG Era and general safe family-friendly content) is all due to Linda's political campaign. Isn't it? I mean, say Linda's political pipe dream was never an issue, do you think we'd be seeing a substantially edgier WWE product?
Nope, I don't think so. The PG product is basically 100% a product of the toy sponsorships and trying to get better TV rights fees. Plus there's literally nothing outside of blood and swearing that they can't do with a PG rating that they could do a TV14 rating. The whole argument is kind of silly, because an "edgier" product isn't the main problem, there's literally a hundred other issues troubling them before that.
A real pet peeve of mine is people equating kid friendly with downright stupid. I've seen plenty of cartoons aimed at children that have done a much better job of delivering coherent plot lines. WWE is nowhere near as nuanced and well done as the writing on Avatar: the last airbender (but then, that's true of a lot of tv shows).
ReplyDeleteTV-14 as the catchall solution to everything is probably the most obnoxious recurring argument I see anywhere. It just barely edges out the insistences people make, whenever someone gets popped for wellness, how it's possible for THAT guy to get in trouble when John Cena has never violated wellness. Because he's CLEARLY on something, I mean LOOK at him.
ReplyDeleteSesame Street has clever, witty, skits that make me chuckle.
ReplyDeleteKid friendly doesn't HAVE to mean stupid.
Threadjack: CNN just called it for Obama.
ReplyDeleteI think it was all of us clamoring for the WWE to be like it was in the 80's. If you look at the WWF in the 80's and early 90's it was PG sometimes even G. I also believe it's just natural progression. I can't speak for everyone but for my group of friends we were all kids during Hulkamania which was aimed at kids. We were angst ridden teenagers during the Attitude era which was aimed at angst ridden teenagers. We're all adults in our late 20's early 30's now and we should have children, none of us do, but we should, anyways we'd probably would want our children to watch what we watch like we did with our fathers. I don't think we would want our children watching some of the stuff in the Attitude era.
ReplyDeleteBingo. It's crappy writing and nonsensical decisions that make the shows difficult to watch. Not to mention that there seems to be a legitimate contempt towards the fanbase from the decision makers. In the past several years, the only two guys that really broke through and received a healthy push due to fan reaction have been CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, and even those have been done with restraint (particularly Bryan). If this attitude existed during the Attitude Era, Mick Foley DEFINITELY wouldn't have become a legend and I have doubts about Austin as well (Rock had the look and pedigree to ensure he gets an opportunity, a la Randy Orton). But otherwise, they push who they want, when they want, and usually at the direct expense of people the fans ARE rallying behind -- to an extent I don't recall at any point in the company's history.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention there really aren't any feuds and storylines, outside of the main eventers. Wade Barrett received weeks of vignettes hyping his return. He comes back with a new look and style. He's constantly touted by the announcers. He's been back now for, what, a month or two, and he hasn't been involved in a single storyline or feud. He fights a lot, sometimes against the same person repeatedly, but he's not really feuding with them and there's no story behind it. He's just there.
Going PG was absolutely the right business move for the company, actually. The older teen/ college aged guys weren't into it anymore. It just wasn't "cool" enough, and those things trend like crazy. Focusing on younger fans is the right fit. Just like the 80's children became the 90's attitude fan, the 00's children will become the future fan when they become "cool" again. This is all talking about the common fan, not us hardcore fans that populate the internet. It was an astute business move, and it should be commended.
ReplyDeleteI believe going PG was the wrong move from a business perspective, but WWE was always committed to it. I would have preferred if WWE had gone TV-MA in 2006 and really pushed the envelope. Edge's World Title celebration drew a huge quarter hour rating and the fans at that time wanted a more adult-oriented product.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with targeting children today is that there aren't that many children. The last major baby "boom" occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s. The other problem is that most parents these days are more anti-violence than parents used to be and completely obsessed with sheltering their kids from reality. The culture has changed and made it much more difficult for pro wrestling to be marketed toward children. The TV shows air too late. I just cannot imagine many parents allowing their kids to stay up until 11 on a school night to watch anything on TV. Still, WWE really can't turn back now so they'd be better off moving their TV show to an earlier time slot.
If The Rock came up in today's WWE, he'd stay Rocky Maivia and be pushed heavily even if most of the fans chant "Die Rocky Die" at every WWE show.
ReplyDeleteThis is based on nothing but opinion, but I think 2006 was the absolute end of any hanger-on attitude era fans sticking with watching WWE. 2006 had Edge's push to the main event (which was awesome), and the return of ECW and DX (which weren't as awesome), but the main problem is the same as it is today---these people hated Cena. I think they lost a lot of fans in 2006 which is why they went with the Undertaker/Shawn Michaels both challenging for titles Wrestle Mania in 2007. As a last ditch to reclaim put-off fans. But those people hated Cena too much, and are gone pretty much for good.
ReplyDeleteThe Attitude Era was only good because you had stars the caliber of Austin, Rock and Foley arrive all at the same time, followed shorty afterwards by HHH and Kurt Angle, supplemented by Undertaker from the old guard and as well as guys like Jericho and Benoit.
ReplyDeleteThe best stuff from that era was and could still be done under a PG rating. The really risque stuff was terrible and if you want half naked women, just use google images.
As many have noted, TV-14 doesn't equal better. Personally i despised 95% of the smutty sex stuff Russo pushed. I didn't need a bunch of scantily clad women since I had real live women, or during dry spells internet porn. Then again i wasn't 14. That said, blood shouldn't be a PG issue. I'm not asking for gushers. I'm simply saying that back in the "family friendly" 80s, guys bled now and then. We all grew up fine. So don't stop matches for a little blood (they are all tested for Hep C and Aids) and when you do a cage or hell in the cell, don't be afraid to get a little color. I'm not suggesting a return to ECW or the old NWA where blood was common, I'm suggesting if it happens hard way, let it go. And for the right feud, the right blowoff, it can be big. One of the reasons we remember the blood in matches like Piper/Hart at WM8, Hart/Bulldog at IYH, or Austin/bret at WM13, is because it was very rare. Keep it that way, but don't have a blanket policy outlawing it either.
ReplyDeletewell that and it was exciting. Sure there were great stars but with two companies going live every week, plus ECW and the rise of the internet, you had the perfect storm to have fans simply dying to see what happened next, even if what happened next didn't always make sense.
ReplyDeleteI think people clamour for more adult material because they think it will get rid of all the goofiness and harken back to the fresher, crazier, more entertaining Attitude Era days but whether it's PG or TV14, bad writing is bad writing and an ineptly run TV show will continue to fail. In that sense, if the WWE were to move away from PG now it wouldn't make the writing any better, it would just mean we'd get skits where Santino and his snake were an item until his snake went off to fondle Mark Henry and hilarity would ensue. The more mature rating wouldn't lead to more mature content, is what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteWe should remember, as well, that the raunchiness and mature content of the Attitude era worked in the late-90s because it captured the zeitgeist. Anti-authoritarian sentiment and Jerry Springer-like revelations were huge at the time and thus, it caught on in WWE (in no small part aided by the caliber of guys they had on the roster). If anything, the WWE shouldn't be looking to whether to market to kids or adults, they should simply be trying to capture the zeitgeist again. To be fair, Stephanie's clearly tried with Twilight and all the "Team Whatever" stuff but that doesn't seem to work. Probably due to the poor writing. I guess that's the crux of it all. Literally nothing can fix the company, quality-wise, until the writing improves. All other concerns are peripheral, as far as I'm concerned. It's hilarious that WWE want to be held in the same esteem as proper dramatised shows when, if any other show featured the quality of writing we've seen from WWE recently, it would be summarily cancelled and mocked as a pinnacle of terrible television. If anything, WWE should be thankful they are a wrestling show because the fans give them a hell of a lot more leeway than viewers of shows like Homeland and Sopranos would.
He'd make it work. He is an enchanting personality. Just like Punk and Bryan have made it work.
ReplyDeleteI gave up on WWE in 2006 because they wouldn't stop pushing Cena, although I wasn't watching during the Attitude Era. The fake ECW was one of them. I had watched TNA off and on since the FSN days, so I watched their show only for a while but I gave up on them after a month or so. I watched part of Raw occasionally for a few years, but I basically got back into wrestling when I watched Wrestlemania 26 based on seeing that Bret Hart was back and Edge was facing Jericho for the World Title. CM Punk's Straight Edge Society was the one thing that got me watching again, at least until WWE threw that away.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I watched TNA in 2010 was the Lockbox episode. I gave the show a 2nd look as WWE started to turn me off again and there was enough there to keep my interest, even with the booking flaws. RVD was the World Champ by that point and any show with Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle and Mr. Anderson as some of the other top stars was basically going to appeal to me. Anderson was supposed to be one of the big future stars in 2006 and I think one of the reasons he hasn't been is because the Attitude Era fans are gone and mostly aren't coming back.
If WWE wanted to keep the Attitude Era fans, they needed to double-turn Cena and Edge in 2006 just like the Bret Hart/Steve Austin double-turn in 1997. If TNA had gone to 2 hours when they signed Kurt Angle instead of waiting another year, they might have drawn away more of the Attitude Era fans. Most of those fans, like most of the WCW fans, are now gone. I definitely think the theory that the Attitude Era fans gave up after 2006 is spot-on.
The WWE books to a lazy formula and indulges itself, back then they tried to switch things up, make every moment as important as possible to keep people watching. Something they'd do well to remember.
ReplyDeleteIt's the difference between writing kid friendly and writing as if you are yourself a child.
ReplyDeleteBut did the WWE's toy line/sponsorship suffer during the Attitude era? Did they TV rights fees suffer? Wasn't business in fact at an all time high then?
ReplyDeleteespecially since most of 1997* was TV-PG.
ReplyDelete* or was it even all of it?
Actually the first half of raw was rated pg i think then the second hour, the warzone was rated for more mature. But i dont know what they were rated at the time for sure but do remember both hours of raw is war had different ratings from 9-10 and 10-11.
ReplyDeleteYour first two sentences nailed it.
ReplyDeletewho are you to doubt their storytelling?
ReplyDeleteor he'd be just like John Cena?
ReplyDelete2006 also coincides with the rise of UFC. That's probably not a coincidence.
ReplyDelete