This might be controversial because alot of people will read the title of the article and not read a word of it and probably ask for my head, but I encourage everyone to read the article before you comment….. This article in no way is stating that the “WWE PG Era” is the best era. This article is just defending it against unfair criticism.
Since we all know the bad of the PG era Why don’t we look at the good that PG wrestling brings us.
The Good
A lot of good comes from this new PG era. One of the things that has changed is respect for titles….. In the attitude era if a champion held the title for 3 months that was considered Bruno Sammartino long. The WWF/WWE world title would change hand so frequently that you would forget who was champion sometimes. The IC title got the worst of it, Comedy acts like the Godfather were IC champion and it seemed to be traded weekly between wrestlers. The IC championship lost all prestige during the attitude era. Long gone were the days of the IC championship being a stepping stone to the main event or the WWF championship, It was now reduce to a prop, A meaningless prop at that.
In today’s wrestling The title reigns have been longer and prestige has been restored championships. There is no more hot shoting the world championship from one wrestler to another. Now title wins mean something. When is the last time you seen a championship change hands on Raw or Smackdown?….. This is a defiant upgrade from the attitude eras handling of the championship.
Match quality has still been pretty good during the PG era. If you look at the early stages of the attitude era and the Rock and Wrestling era, Match quality was really poor. The Attitude era relied on its talent to use hardcore and garbage matches for shock value and those matches haven’t aged well. Not to say that matches from that era all were terrible but good matches were few and far between in the early stages of the attitude era……. The match quality today isn’t terrible, Im not saying that today’s products match quality is the “BEST” or “GREAT” but it sure isn’t bad. We have seen some great matches this year alone.
WWE Merchandise is much higher quality in the PG era than any other era. Since WWE went PG better merchants had shown interest in producing WWE products, Such as Mattel…. Today, even though WWE’s ratings are not as high as they were in the past, You really cant go anywhere without seeing WWE products all over. The WWE product is more appealing to retailers because of their move to PG, Even past eras merchandise are also sold at local retailers. You can walk in to a retail store now and buy a Macho Man or Steve Austin shirt (its come a long way from me and my brother making are own NWO T-shirts cause no one sold wrestling apparel), All because of the WWE changing their TV rating and toning down their product.
Some people may wonder “Why did the WWE switch to PG?”, well there are several reasons why the WWE went PG and I will explain them to you.
WHY?
There are several reasons Why the WWE went PG but they all revolve around one thing “MONEY, MONEY, MONEY”…. Do people out there think that Vince McMahon just recently developed a conscious and morale’s? No, No,No. Its all about the money and I will explain to you how.
Why do you think WCW went out of business? Why do you think TNA had a hell of a time getting a TV deal?. Its all because TV networks don’t want wrestling on their network because advertisers don’t pay to advertise to wrestling fans.
The general feeling of advertisers is that adult wrestling fans are poor and do not have a expendable income. When advertisers think wrestling fans they think of dirty, poor, trailer park trash. So even though WWF was getting monster ratings durung the attitude era, they were not getting very much money from advertisers, Well I dont know exact figures but I do know They certainly weren’t getting the advertising money that other 6.0 Nielsen rating shows were getting.
So with ratings going down and going down fast, How does Vince McMahon to do?. If advertisers were hard to get because of content and demographic before imagine how hard it be with half the Nielsen ratings….. What he did do In a incredibly smart business move, Vince McMahon changed the TV ratings to PG and tells advertisers that its a family TV show, Its for kids, Moms and Dads. So now TV advertisers see a family with a disposable income. A child who bugs his parents for toys and school lunch snacks, A Mom on the go that don’t have time to fix dinner and sees a Apples Bees take out commercial and a Dad who buys motor oil and is a coffee drinker………. Now advertisers feel that their product is being brought in front of a consumer who is worth advertising too. I would consider that a great business move. Now companies like Mattel, Walmart and Kmart all have partnerships with WWE , All because of this business move.
You also have the network (USA) that is paying the WWE close to a quarter of a billion dollars (Don’t remember the exact figure) for a show they do not own and cannot rerun and they are asking WWE to be PG, then you know what, WWE is gonna be PG…. WWE needs to make its advertisers, Stock holders and its networks happy before its fans. WWE don’t care if they lose some fans if in the process they get more advertisers, Which in turn make their stock holders and networks happy. Because these are the people that pay the WWE.
WWE does caters to their hardcore fans thru the WWE network. Which is a smart move by WWE, keeping their hardcore fans and loyalist happy and making them pay the 9.99. Then the WWE turns around and caters to its advertisers and networks on Raw and Smackdown then collect the pay checks from them.
A Different World
I hope most people got my 80’s TV reference. WWE in a way had to go PG. The world has changed so much since the 90’s. People have become so sensitive in this day and age, Its impossible not to offended someone somewhere.
I believe it was Jerry Seinfeld who said he stopped performing at college campuses because of how sensitive and easily offended the audience is. Jerry Seinfeld who is a tamed comedian to begin with, finds it hard to perform because of people being too sensitive just shows you how bad its become. A lot of comedians stopped performing at college campuses cause of the sensitivity of students .
The point of this part of the article is, How would the WWE attitude product survive in this day in age?, It simply wouldn’t. We live in a world where people cant say Merry Christmas let alone have Women crawling and barking ( people consider that sexiest and degrading), Men telling people to ” Suck It” (Attempted rape), Men wrestling women (encouraging domestic abuse), Men telling women to Show their puppies (sexual harassment ) and that is not even covering the first hour of Raw……….. The attitude era wouldn’t survive in this day and age, because people today wouldn’t accept it. Society today is quick to label people who offended them as racist, homophobic or sexiest.
Conclusion
Is today’s PG era my ideal product?, No its not, but WWE needed to change to survive and strive in this day and age. WWE is many things but it is a business first and it has one purpose and that’s to make money and remain profitable. I think it was a great business move and I commend the WWE on also catering to its hardcore fans with WWE network specials and DVDs and such.
even though I’m disappointed in many things the WWE is doing right now, I understand why they are doing it…..There is still some of the product I still really enjoy and love at times and that is what keeps me coming back for more.
