Are the fans' criticisms a reason for the change to PG?

I don’t think fans are ever satisfied of the product we receive from WWE.

Kids are different from adults because they simply enjoy the show and they imagine it as a realistic perspective. Wrestling can turn out to be more entertaining if you don’t realize that everything is scripted and planned. It’s better to know for the spirit of competition to have fun. For example, basketball and football isn’t planned. Fans often bet on who wins and its more unpredictable. It’s what makes their games exciting and breathtaking to watch because you might have made a bet with your friends about who will win or who will become champion. Kids can follow WWE in that way and that’s why they are easier to please and have more enthusiasm.

Adults aren’t satisfied with the product often. I think its best just to relax and enjoy the show for entertainment purposes. It’s like being a kid again and watching solely for the entertaining and the drama. Wrestling fans these days know a tremendous amount of backstage power, scripts, and new superstars. We can easily gain access to information that fans from 10-20 years couldn’t access. It’s why the wrestling in the 80s and 90s were great. It was more unpredictable back then because we didn’t know who the winners were or what would happen in a certain storyline.

WWE does occasionally try pushing new superstars such as Randy Orton, John Cena, Jeff Hardy, John Morrison, and others, but we aren’t satisfied with them. John Cena is hugely hated by the IWC, Randy Orton has been earning more criticism, Jeff Hardy is probably the most hated superstar in the IWC today, and many people think John Morrison is overrated. We have turned our backs on each and every one of these superstars. Would we be satisfied if WWE pushed new superstars? Would we turn our backs on them as well? It’s mostly WWE’s fault for recycling the same storylines, but its best to stay optimistic in my opinion. Let’s give some feuds a chance before we say its going to suck.

Let’s take a look at today’s technology for wrestling fans. We have almost unlimited sites that consistently show about wrestling. There are numerous spoiler and wrestling sites that have spoilers and predictions. WWE is predictable unless they hide it really well, unless you just enjoy the show. John Cena returning at Royal Rumble last year was surprising because nobody expected it. If we already expect things from looking at spoiler sites, how can we say WWE is predictable? WWE has undoubtedly been more repetitive, but they have a knack of surprising fans as well. Its the spoilers and all the huge smarks that kill the unpredictability of wrestling or sports entertainment.

PG has nothing to do with the WWE. It’s the storylines most of the time because we have been seeing feuds like Randy Orton vs Triple H for too long. Hornswoggle and Chavo have been having a ridiculous feud, but have people forgotten the things the Attitude Era produced? We saw things like Mae Young giving birth to a hand. PG era has nothing to do with ruining the quality of wrestling itself. Blood only works if the moment is special and if it is repeatedly used, do you think blood will be special then? I try my best to simply get entertained by WWE, but WWE can only push a fan so far with ridiculous and repeated storylines. Kids buy more merchandise and some think that WWE is real. WWE is trying to find the balance of pleasing both the younger audience and the older audience and I hope that one day, they succeed.

BQ: I don’t know because each DVD provides something unique from their perspective and I enjoyed many of them.

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If you can’t make your target audience happy, change your target audience. It actually makes some sense in that respect, Vince McMahon believes what he is doing is perfect and if people don’t like that then they aren’t the people he wants watching his show but at the same time does anyone think Vince McMahon gives a flying **** about anyone outside his company thinks of what he’s doing? I hope not because he clearly doesn’t he barely cares what the people he employs thinks.

I can’t stand people that say the WWE is now aimed at kids like its never been this way before though, Hulk Hogan use to tell kids to take Vitamins and say their prayers! That’s blatantly PG marketing directly at the young audience is it not? In a brief 5 years of a company that spans 5 decades it wasn’t aimed at a young audience and even though it was very “succesful” the fact remains if WCW was run right the attitude era would have been known as the final era of Vince McMahon’s company. PG wrestling with stars that have a huge child fanbase are McMahon’s MO and anyone that knows anything about Hulkamania can see that is exactly what he has returned to.

I really do wish i was a young fan again though, not sure if anyone else feels this way, but back then i didn’t watch a wrestling promo thinking “he’s doing a good job here” or “he’s butchering a good promo concept here”. I honestly miss wanting my favourites to win all the time and not thinking about who’s best to go over for the story and company… young fans get annoying as sin but i’d happly go back and be one again because wrestling isn’t the same once you accept the business for what it is.

I honestly don’t think Vince McMahon changed because of what us older fans say now we have the internet to teach us everything we shouldn’t really know. He’s just returned to what he believes sports entertainment should be about, superheros vs. cartoon villians. He knows the only audience that will really buy into that is a younger one because most people grow up to a stage where they want to see close, unpredictable matches between two closely matched stars. Vince McMahon doesn’t want to do a wrestling show that’s why he created his “sports entertainment” and this PG product is exactly what he had in mind.

BQ: The Legacy of Eddie Guerrero, i just love reliving some of those matches from time to time.

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Great Question btw…..

I have to agree with you on most parts!, I never thought about it this deep, but some of your points do make alot of sense. Kids are easier to enchant and amuse than Adults are. They are not as a Demanding audience as Adults are, and they buy tons of merchandise. So it makes sense for WWE to target them. The Kid audience is very less moderate & difficult to deal with than adults. Plus there great sculpting instruments for WWE.

But on the other hand. I don’t really think WWE was trying to abandon their adult audience completely. I think Vince was just trying to broaden his Entertainment value, He must have figured His current Adult audience plus his current Kid viewers will equal a ton of revenue. WWE was TV-14 at one time, and wasn’t suitable for kids. Lets face it there was ALOT of parents prohibiting there kids from watching WWE because of the TV-14 rating. Too much hardcore violence and sexual activity.

So Vince must have realized this and thought about all the Younger viewers, and How much merchandise WWE relied on them to buy during the Hulkamania Days, and took a shot at WWE being a more family oriented show. Considering that WWE would gain more pleasing two crowds rather than one.

BQ: Currently I would have to Edge’s “Decade of Decadence” some very classic matches on there with great moments. Also the Wm Anthology would be another I really enjoy (Which is what I watch most of the time), and RAW 15 Anniversary DVD again great Moments to watch and keep in touch with.

I actually agree with you. It’s easier to mold a young kids mind than an adult who knows what he wants and likes. If the adult doesn’t get what he wants, he will stop watching. Kids/Children are more faithful to the things they watch, so building an audience at a young age, in my opinion is a good thing for the WWE.

BQ: My top three DVDs:

Nature Boy Ric Flair – The Definitive Collection (28)

The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection (23)

Viva La Raza – The Legacy of Eddie Guerrero (28)

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I think the WWE changing to PG is based on a number of things. Firstly, the WWE has been losing a lot of its great stars to TNA, Death and other reasons. These stars like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Rhino, Kurt Angle and so on have left the WWE and so the WWE is running out of the well known Pro Wrestling faces. Changing the rating will attract kids, then come along the families. A lot of the kids are un aware of WCW, ECW and the great names like Kurt Angle and so on. They don’t understand the story behind pro wrestling either. They only know the wrestlers based on there performances in the last few years. If they could compare the wrestlers from today and the promos from today to the promos and stars of the 90’s, the Attitude era and even from just a few years ago in 24.

My seconds theory is the WWE was running out of ideas, gimmicks, story lines ect ect. The great story lines and gimmicks were getting old and the news on were getting stupid and just plain wrong. Example, Kane raping lita? Vicky Guerrero saying her husband is dead? The on and off marriages on air? They were just plain stupid. Appealing to kids and families is hard but it is rather easy in the short term. Just come up with child friendly gimmick and keep the same basics story year in year out, but tweak it a bit so the kids don’t get suspicious.

Kids are also more of a statistic and less like… People. It is easy to please on type of person. I understand what you mean about the adults getting spoilers and complaining a lot, but that’s because older people have more of an opinion. It is harder to please an older audience because we all want different things in a promo. Kids on the other hand have a much smaller set of expectations, so it is harder to anger the minority and or majority.

Also, generations of wrestling fans move on and get older, Kids do not. The WWE could keep this up for years and years and kids would not get tired of it.

BQ: I own Royal Rumble 03. It is well good!

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No, I dont think thats the reason. Generally, people were not complaining 5 years ago (24) and before that. Sure, some people DID complain then, but you’re always going to have complainers to some degree, but its NOTHING like today, and rightfully so. Ever since 25 on, when has WWE TRULY been an exciting, can’t miss product? Yea, they’ll throw us a bone here and there, like the CM Punk heel turn, or the re-birth of ECW (I thought it was good for the first few months), or the Taker/Shawn match at Mania 25. Sometimes, I’ll admit, it looks like they are onto something good, like with the Randy Orton IED thing, where he was portrayed as someone who was truly mentally ill, but then they totally flushed that down the toilet when they had him admit that he faked the disorder all along, killing off any momentum he was building up for weeks before that. They could of ran with that in the current PG era, and Orton could of been a cool, realistic type heel, but they blew it. Basically, the WWE has turned too commerical. The guys are given lines to say by Hollywood writers, and their promos and acting ability comes across as very un-realistic and phony, with Orton, Cena, and Hardy being prime examples of that, which is driving many older fans like myself away. You never saw this type of crap during the Monday Night Wars, or even before that. They put out material that pretty much insults the intelligence of anyone over the age of 15. I have a bit of respect for the people that can sit thru Raw these days and look at everything from a pure positive perspective. I dont know how they do it, because not even a 12 pack of Budwieser can get me thru another Chavo/Hornswoggle match

BQ: The Bret Hart DVD

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No he changed it because he nows kids r more willing to buy merchandise and I’m guessing making wrestling more mainstream. The fans who criticize everything should have been beaten alot more by their parents

Source(s): You have been Hodgekissed, enlightening isn’t it?

Attitude Era Sucks. Continue with PG!

BQ:John Cena – My Life

Source(s): Your Attitude has just been Adjusted.78

Yep, I agree. Kids are easier to please…

BQ: Edge: Decade of Decadence…

PG sucks. Bring back the Attitude Era

bq- the self destruction of the ultimate warrior

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