Do you belive?

[samboisdead]

Ok I like many dont care for the PG era. I do unlike some understand that you can make alot of money off kids though especially since they have to bring their parents to come. John Cena is getting blame for the PG era, the fact that WWE is pubicly owned and wants sponsors more than ever now is blamed, and Vince having lost his touch is one theory. I however have a new spin or opinion on why we now have the PG era. I think Linda McMahon has been planning to run for senate for a long time now. They are already going to have tons of dirt to sling at her but it will not really hurt her image because just about everything the McMahons have been through has been very well publicised. However if the WWE is still putting an adult oriented show that has sex, violence, and inapropriate language each week then her oponent could eat her alive with that. So I belive it is all Lindas fault. Well this is just a theory I have came up with. Do you guys think I have something here or just full of it lol?

[Thunder]

Hmm! I guess you could be onto something.

Nevertheless, I don't think it is altogether fair to blame Linda McMahon. I mean, she probably has very little say in regards to what the product is every week and I feel that trying to blame he is a bit wrong really. This whole thing has become a mud-slinging match for everyone to blame whoever they want for the supposed "failings" of WWE. I would say that a lot of thing have contributed to WWE not giving some people the product that they want to see, like 10 years ago. I think that blaming any one person, be it Cena, Linda or even Vince McMahon is wrong and that the WWE is getting a bad reputation from us that is unwarranted to some extent.

The WWE is putting out 4 shows every week that show us that there doesn't have to be blood, sex and a massive orgy of destruction to be successful. Why should they?The have no real competition and they don't have to be edgy any more. I for one think that the WWE is still a good product without being in the Attitude Era and I also think that no one is to blame for the product. Mainly because the product is still making money at a reasonable rate for them.

As for Linda McMahon, she may have asked Vince to tone down some of the stuff but at the end of the day, the WWE has been their business for decades now and they will always try and be successful with the product that they send out. If Linda asked Vince to do something that made very little business sense, I have to believe that he wouldn't do it.

[spiegs289]

Here's the deal
1. There have been people associated with worse forms of entertainment elected to office (Al Franken, Ronald Regan, Jesse the Body Ventura)
2. Linda has NO political experience.
3. Anyone who is dumb enough to vote for her won't give a sh*t if she was involved in pro wrestling, in fact that will be the ONLY reason people vote for her.

[Beards17]

the whole pg era is very annoying but you can see some wrestlers trying to push the boundry(triple h):)
linda running for senate is cool but i doubt she gots a chance to win, politicans just play to dirty, But she is married to Vince so i could be a intersting race! i agree with the adult content on wwe to hinder Linda political career but damn it was so much more fun with HLA:):)

[ZigglerSwaggerFan]

I love the 'PG' era. The reason I stopped watching wrestling in the first place was the 'Attitude Era'. I thought it was stupid. I even tried to get back into watching it again a few years ago, but it was STILL getting on my nerves.

Now, mainly anyway, it's all about wrestling, and normal storylines. I'm just a sucker for good feuds. Ziggler/Mysterio for one is/was a great one. Nothing special going on, just a great feud and amazing matches. That's all I want.

I just wish the WWE and WH championships were being fought for by some different talent.

[gregfj2]

Do I believe Linda has any chance? No. Do I care? No.
Do I believe Cena is responsible for PG? No. Poster Boy for PG? Absolutely.
Do I believe PG was created for political goals? No. For sponsors? Sure.
Do I approve of PG? Sure. Do I wanna hear Jerry say "puppies" every week? YES!!!

[Lord Sidious]

I simply can not accept that The PG Era is here today simply because Linda McMahon was planning a Senate run. Certainly, she would never be able to have a Senate run if her product was like what it used to be. But no, I don't think she would actually go as far as to use her product and use her fans simply to cater to her political aspirations.

Rather, I think they went into this direction to please advertisers, as even Jim Ross admitted to in his blog, as it is a "safer product" .... and her running for the Senate was simply made possible since the company went in this direction anyway.

So no, I don't think it was as a result of her political aspirations, but it certainly made her political aspirations possible.

Now, do I think she has a chance in Hell of actually being elected? A Republican in a solid blue state like Connecticut? LOL. Not in this lifetime.

So I primarily think the reason The PG Era is here is to cater to the company's advertisers by having a safer product, and getting Congress off its back by changing the company's public perception as "family friendly entertainment". They may have intended to attract a large amount of kids to the product, as well .... but I don't actually think this was a primary reason for them going PG.

I think they went PG because they had problems attracting advertisers to their product, because of its public perception. Now, they can attract more lucrative advertisers who are more willing to stick their neck out and be associated with the company ... and probably achieve higher advertising revenue as a result.

However, there comes a price in catering to advertisers, and that is that you risk pissing off the fanbase. So where as you may pick up more advertising dollars, you risk losing other company revenue in the form of PPV buys and attendance. And that is what I think has transpired. Obviously, this actually did happen, which explains why Vince has raised both his ticket prices and his PPV prices these past few years, because obviously he experienced a loss in revenue when his numbers went down.

So he is relying on his base to pick up the slack when a lot of his fans left. But he is playing a game of chess in testing their threshold with how far they are willing to go with his rising prices, and how much they are willing to tolerate before they say "Fuck this. This is costing too much money."

So, we'll see. It is fascinating to sit back and watch it all unfold.

But I will say that I don't sense that Vince has picked up the numbers of kids he perhaps wanted to attract to the product. And I think that is a large part why we keep seeing Hornswoggle on TV Monday nights. He isn't as much, in my opinion, catering to the Kids he already has. But rather, he wants to attract more Kids to the show and hoping he can get them over the passing weeks. We'll see if it works. I'm not holding my breath. All the while, he is pissing off the adults.

Again, just a very interesting conflict in trying to please both small children and adults. Two very large extremes in demographics. Which is exactly why I simply feel there are smarter ways of capturing both audiences and achieving higher revenues without having to try to please both audiences with one single product. It simply requires thinking about the product in a much larger sense.

[S.O.B. Radio]

Vince was toying with the idea of the PG rating the minute they turned Cena babyface. The marketing idea was to bring along this white guy doing the whole freestyle/Eminem gimmick. These days, Cena is not that guy and comes off sounding like a guy being fed lines by a pissed off television writer.

The day the PG rating goes up to a 14 is when viable competition becomes more of a reality. TNA is not viable competition. TNA has no chance in becoming a viable competitor. One guy would have to leave WWE and jump over to TNA for this to happen: John Cena.

It will never happen unless ten years from now Cena finds himself in the same predicament as Hulk Hogan where his name can carry a different promotion the exact same way Hogan did when jumping to WCW. At this present time,Vince would rather see guys like Cena retire out of WWE than see anyone defect to TNA. The former WWE guys who are currently in TNA are there for a reason. I have doubts that Vince would take many of these guys back into the WWE and the only two guys that I would want to see go from TNA to WWE would be A.J. Styles and Sting. But it will never happen.

[BernacK6]

The PG Era exists because of the lack of competition, and this is the only reason. If WWE was competing head to head with another company that had the resources to take away its' talent and put on a show worthy of stealing a large percentage of their ratings, we would see an edgier product. Remember here kids, the Attitude Era was the greatest era in pro wrestling because you had 2 organizations poaching each other's talent and competing head to head on the same night in the same time slot.

If WWE ever gains legit competition (and it won't be TNA, because they'll never move time slots....why compete against the Pro Wrestling Juggernaut with an inferior product?), we may see a change in the WWE atmosphere. Ring of Honor presents an interesting challenge if they ever get a network deal and the money to put a show on TV because having attended an event this past weekend, I can say the actual in-ring performance is better than that of the WWE.

Until WWE gains real competition, settle in for this PG Era to continue. They are family friendly now because their initial push into mainstream America happened because of the controversy and extreme content. Now that they're in the door, they have toned down the product to gain younger viewership, sell merchandise, and gain sponsorship.

[Paradox]

It's not Linda, I don't believe that she has that much say in the matter. With her senate run and all, I still highly doubt that it was because of her that Vince changed everything. He had a highly marketable protect why would he change that? I doubt that, because we all know Vince wants money. Even if it cost Linda a seat.

To be completely honest, the only reason we have this era is Vince McMahon. This is exactly where he wants this company. it's exactly where it was before the attitude era. PG is where Vince feels comfortable. Why? Because his product is open to a wider range of fans. Thus bringing in more money. The only reason Vince went in the direction that he did for the attitude era was because WCW was destroying him. He had to make a change or WWF would have been out of business. If he doesn't have to take any chances why should he? There is absolutely no reason for him to. TNA isn't going to challenge him for the next 3 years at least. So he can sit back with pg where he knows he's not going to offend anyone and rake in the money.

[JJYanks121]

I love a good conspiracy theory. This one is so over the top and ridiculous, I actually laughed when I read it. Linda McMahon is probably fulfilling a career ambition that she's had for a long time. With the country trying to find it's direction and a democratic president struggling with bipartisanship in the Senate, strong willed Republicans are needed to provide opposing views. It is a pretty easily proven theory that the times our country functions best is when the president and congress are controlled by DIFFERENT parties. That, added to Connecticut's unhappiness with Chris Dodd make it a pretty good time for Linda to take a chance at running.

The PG rating has NOTHING to do with Linda running. If Al Franken can call out government and write badly about it for years on SNL and win a senate seat, I hardly think people are going to be offended by a woman who is the CEO of a billion dollar corporation. So what if they have bikini contests or have blood and violence. This isn't directly her involved in such, and again, even if it was, see Arnold Schwarzenegger. Most of the population doesn't watch WWE programming and thus won't care when it comes to voting.

And enough of these illogical reasons for why the WWE went PG. I guess being 25 years old, I fit in the perfect wave of how programming has been shaped. When I was a kid, I was drawn in by over the top characters, larger than life superhero types and merely the spectacle of wrestling. That's what entices a kid. Kids can't understand in depth storylines, but they can see a cool looking shirt and want it, or a mask, or wristbands, or in my case, a green ultimate warrior headband. You are drawn by people without fully understanding what's going on. Kids bring parents to shows and perhaps make them fans, and the parents are more likely to be if they deem the show "appropriate" for their child to watch. As my generation got older, we got bored with the crazy characters and simple "good guy vs. bad guy" formula. We looked for an alternative and found it in the form of attitude. Whether you attribute that to the NWO, Degeneration X, Brian Pillman, ECW, it doesn't matter. The point is, the product got risque and got you asking "what will happen next?" You were left hanging each week as to how they will top it next week. Will there be skimpier clothing worn by Sable? Will Austin flip off someone else? Who will bleed the most? What new, over the top storyline will come next? When thinking about, there was a lot of messed up stuff, but it was full of action and boobies, which for a 14 year old was pretty exciting! Of course, as you get older and start dating and finding boobies of your own (not meaning to degrade women here, just making a point), you don't need that as much from a program. You also begin to appreciate women for their beauty regardless of what they wear. The "attitude" isn't so needed. Therefore, as we got older, we didnt' need risque to keep us watching, or we shouldn't. The years of intent following should keep us into the programming and wanting to know what stories will happen next.

Now, in 2007, something HUGE happened. The Chris Benoit murder/suicide brought the wrestling industry to the forefront. And in a BAD way. People were going to scrutinize the product more than ever so anything that can be portrayed as substandard programming had to go. I believe this COULD have led to high quality writing and stories, and in some cases, it has. There's always hits and misses in the industry of course. So now, we have more of a focus on stories and matches than skimpy clothing, cursing, beer drinking, and blood. The murder/suicide may have driven some away, so the WWE is looking to bring in an entirely new generation like mine to get into WWE now as children and grow up with the product, as they get older, perhaps the product will change again. Perhaps some of them will come here to bitch about stuff like us. As they age, they'll appreciate the product in a different way, but for now, the reason it's PG is to bring in a new generation of fans. I'm sure a billion dollar corporation knows what it's doing. Sales are high for merchandise and shows and business is good even in bad economic times. You gotta recognize that ability to make money means the people in the company know what they are doing! And perhaps Senator McMahon will bring in even more attention to it.......,

[samboisdead]

All good points made on here but some dont make sense. I honestly still belive Linda has alot to do with the PG era. Talking about the people getting elected who had been involved in worse stuff. Honestly wrestling is diffrent and to most Hollywood type people is the bottom of the barrell worst thing you could ever do. The sterotype that only dumb rednck hillbillys with no teeth watch wrestling is still alive and well. Yeah I no Jessee got elected but if you read his book he had distanced himself from wrestling for quite some time upon election and also he admits it was pretty much a fluke he won. Now he got to mayor because once he got into congress people actually started seeing how smart he was and what he could do.
Also I have to say that Vince wouldnt do what Linda told him because Vince likes to make money. That tells me the person who said that isnt married lol. If Linda leaves Vince their goes his money. Also alot of people give Vince to much credit. For the most part Vince does control what we see on t.v.. Linda is the one who actually was running the company though. It is Linda who has actually made WWE a world wide success more than it is Vince. Vince McMahon was a bankrupt bum who tricked his dad into selling him a company. Vince himself has admitted Wrestlemania was an idea stolen from Dusty Rhodes creation of Starcade. Vince just had the balls and the connections to take his version further than Dusty could. Vince actually owned the company if he had a boss WM would have never happened.
Hulk Hogan has said numerous times they really didnt no what to expect and that McMahon mortgaged his house, which Lindas family had bought for them as the story goes to finance the event. The day of Mania they still hadnt sold alot of tickets until showtime. Anyway you guys give Vince to much credit the attitude era wasnt due to his genius. It was a mix of luck, a ton of great young stars with great ideas to push, and finally the right place at the right time. I also dont think not having competion is why WWE sucks right now. Vince wants money so he isnt letting his product flounder just because its the only one. Honestly I dont even get everyone claiming he has no competition. UFC is rising fast and stealing quite a few wrestling fans on its way up.
Last but not least my dislike of the PG era is not that the naked women or cussing is gone. I do hate that they dont show blood. I mean you tell me how good it will look if we have 3 HIAC matches in 1 night and no one bleeds. I dont like to see blood all the time but ocasionaly it actually adds to the match. My problem is the stupid stuff. I have no problems with Chavo vs Hornswaggle if they want. I do however have a problem with Chavo wearing a cow costume while he does it. I am 31 years old so I grew up on basically PG WWE. I loved Hogan but honestly if the NWA was on t.v. I would much rather watch it than WWE. They had deep storylines and their wrestling seemed real. Kids nowdays are 10 times smarter than I was then so that blows the guy out of the water that said the PG era was because kids didnt want and couldnt understand the deep stuff. Honestly do people really think that their were not more kids watching the attitude era than has ever watched WWE before? Who do you think think those millions of toys being advertised 50 times a show were for.