WWE PG: Good or Bad?

[The Law]

This has been debated in many other threads, but I'd like to see us all have it out once and for all: Is WWE being PG good, bad, or neutral?

I'm more or less in the good camp. If I ran WWE, I would probably be trying to establish myself as a more legitimate and mainstream entertainment company, and their more kid-friendly approach and charitable work is doing that. It wouldn't surprise me if they pulled in higher ad revenues because companies are more willing to advertise on the show because of the less racy content.

Creatively, I don't think the PG programming is costing us much. How many great wrestling angles can you name that wouldn't have worked under PG? Most of the stuff from the Attitude Era that wouldn't be allowed now was stuff I didn't like: Undertaker being satanic and sacrificing people, Pillman trying to shoot Steve Austin, Val Venis being a pornstar and Godfather being a pimp. I really don't miss Billy Gunn showing his ass (literally) on TV every week or overtly sexual angles being portrayed on TV. I don't need bra and panties matches or other misogynist bullshit. Good wrestling angles rely on psychology and emotion, not raunchiness.

What's your take? Do you wish WWE would go TV-14 again? Or is PG just fine with you?

[Cewsh]

Good. I find it hard to believe that I would continue watching through another era like the Attitude one.

[Kimura Kid]

PG is just fine with me, In fact I'm fucking loving it!!


I really enjoy this generation of wresting. The guys seem "Old School' It's about being the best possible performer & Giving the fans a great show! While maintaining safety while creating art. It's not about who can use the most swear words or who can use the most steroids or who can take the most chair shots to the head or who can be the most edgy.

Fuck it, I Love the PG Era!! I love that I can be proud to be a WWE fan. The work they do with Make-A-Wish, US Coast Gurd & Special Olympics is touching. And it makes me proud to be a fan. The product that they put on is safer for the performers in the long run. And WWE is only getting safer and safer, Taking extra measures to ensure the safety of the performers. Look how they handled Dolph's concussion. This Era is getting back to what made me love wrestling.......wrestling!! The 6 man match was such a breath of fresh air. The way that the shield can work with Daniel Bryan is special. And there's a ton of new talent coming in that has the same ability as those guys. The future of WWE is looking fucking great right now.

But maybe I'm naive.....

[Hero!]

Good. Very good. It forces people to focus less being XTREAM or HARDCOAR and more on developing characters and actual in-ring skills.

Not to mention, when you have guys like Punk or The Shield, who are very against the grain, it makes them stand out more. In the Attitude Era, CM Punk would have been midcard at best and the shield would have just been another stable. In the current Era, they are something special. PLUS, whenever someone bleeds now, it's real HOLY SHIT deal versus 2004-07, when everyone up and done the card was blading like nothing.

So, yeah, I love it. Plus, I feel better watching matches where people aren't shortening each others' lives for stupid and almost worthless (in the long run) spots.

[Andy]

I'm pretty neutral about it. People use it as an excuse for the product being relatively poor, but in my opinion that is far more down to inconsistent booking and poor angles. We've seen from the rise of Punk in 2011 that they're capable of edgy angles in this environment and we've seen in matches like Cena/Lesnar, HHH/Lesnar, Del Rio/Show and others that they're capable of having really good gimmick matches without the same level of violence as before.

We won't ever see another Attitude Era. Maybe we'll see a more edgy/sweary/violent/aggressive product, but the Attitude Era will never be repeated, for a variety of reasons.

[MMH]

I have no strong feelings about it either way. Good wrestling is good wrestling regardless of what rules they have to abide by.

The only issue I have with the PG stuff is some angles really need the extra oomph of the non PG stuff. Im not a fan of blood in wrestling generally and dont get the fuss about it but its a very powerful prop when used sparingly.

[G-Fresh]

I don't mind the current product being PG. What I don't like is all the editing of the older stuff on the new DVDs and on Classics.

I do miss blood and chair shots to the head though.

[Simmo Fortyone]

WWE was PG up until about 1997 and only went TV14 or M or whatever for a few years. Not sure why people pine for those couple of years over everything else.

[G-Fresh]

Cause that was the pinnacle of wrestling for our generation.

[Cewsh]

Which is a shame.

[lotjx]

No, it was amazing. People cared about the wrestlers, the storylines and even though some idiots consider some of the matches garbage matches, they were entertaining. That is the problem with WWE, right now, they are not entertaining.

[Zacharie]

PG is good. It's kind of hard to dispute that since there's less raunchy stuff and less moves where someone could suffer some serious health problems. That doesn't mean that WWE is as interesting as it was during the Attitude Era though. Content has very little to do with it, it's all about dem talents and WWE had some major talent back then.

[G-Fresh]

No, it was amazing. People cared about the wrestlers, the storylines and even though some idiots consider some of the matches garbage matches, they were entertaining. That is the problem with WWE, right now, they are not entertaining.

It was an all around good time for wrestling. ECW was also on fire at the time and garbage wrestling was also at its pinnacle in Japan at the time.

[stylepoints]

There was so much garbage that came out of the Attitude Era, but it was always followed by something brilliant. Attitude Era was very hit and mis, but when it hit, it hit big.

I don't see how a tv rating has to do whether a show or segment is good or bad though. I think a lot of people that wish for tv 14 back are missing the point.

[Hero!]

I do miss blood and chair shots to the head though.

blood i still love, but chair shots to the dome scare the crap outta me. in the years since the benoit thing, every time I see a dome shot, it saddens me. although, the rare occasion that we've seen one since in Taker/Trips, it was amazing. It was a dangerous spot that counted and mattered. It wasn't just another thing, it was a move that showed intensity and took everyone back and made the match feel like so much more.

Compare that to 1999 when there were chairshots up and down the card and we were desensitized to it. These guys were killing themselves for nothing back then.

[Tainted Eclipse]

As said, good wrestling is good wrestling. There's zero reason WWE can't put on a quality product with the PG restrictions they've given themselves. Cena/Punk wasn't antithetical to a PG product, nor were the cool Lesnar segments, Nexus, The Shield or a bunch of other things that were just good wrestling that have happened in the PG era. The in-ring quality hasn't suffered unless you're pining for the days of stiff chair shots left and right and Mick Foley jumping off cells, in which case stop watching for everyone's sake. Granted the tone of the PG product is less exciting and dynamic than was the tone of the Attitude Era, but that has nothing to do with the PG direction as such and was going on long before the PG switch. Any problems WWE has in putting on a consistently good and interesting product(and they have a LOT) have nothing to do with being PG, they have to do with poor booking and vision. Moving away from the PG direction isnt necessarily going to help any of it.

And for my part, thank god the forced edginess and obnoxious overly-sexualized diva stuff is gone. Yeah, some legitimately great characters like Rock and Austin wouldn't fly these days, but they have plenty of awesome PG-friendly characters right now: Punk, The Shield, Daniel Bryan, Ziggler's crew, Mark Henry, others. Although overall I don't think it's a huge factor in the quality of the product, if anything I'd lean to it being a positive in hindering some of the product's more unfortunate general tendencies, especially re: divas.

[G-Fresh]

blood i still love, but chair shots to the dome scare the crap outta me. in the years since the benoit thing, every time I see a dome shot, it saddens me. although, the rare occasion that we've seen one since in Taker/Trips, it was amazing. It was a dangerous spot that counted and mattered. It wasn't just another thing, it was a move that showed intensity and took everyone back and made the match feel like so much more.

Compare that to 1999 when there were chairshots up and down the card and we were desensitized to it. These guys were killing themselves for nothing back then.

I'm not gonna argue that multiple shots to the head aren't risky. Even 1 can fuck your world up. I know how bad hardcore wrestling is on the body. I messed up my back about 10 years ago being powerbombed on a pile of chairs at the 2003 GotJ and it still ain't right. A bunch of my friends have similar or worse stuff wrong with them. The most hardcore shit I've ever seen involving a shot to the head was one of my friends hitting a dude in the head with a frying pan hard enough that his body went limp and he didn't move for a minute or 2.

[mth]

Not much I can say that hasn't been said in favor of the PG ear but I am in favor of the PG era. Anything that's missing from the Attitude Era for me wasn't anything that had to do with the maturity level of the product but rather with the quality of writing and character development and such.

Do we want a poll on this puppy?

[G-Fresh]

Do it up holmes.