During Wrestlemania 41’s post-show press conference, “Triple H” Paul Levesque said, quite ominously, that the atmosphere in the locker room has …
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During Wrestlemania 41’s post-show press conference, “Triple H” Paul Levesque said, quite ominously, that the atmosphere in the locker room has been tremendously positive and that not since the Attitude Era has the momentum been so strong.
To many, it was a Captain Obvious statement that the WWE did its best numbers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, at the peak of the Attitude Era.
Sure, why wouldn’t you say it’s time to revisit your glory days again — especially now that the big boss man, Vincent K. McMahon, has been permanently “retired?”
However, many wrestling fans remember that the WWE Attitude Era (first named and marketed by the company, not fans) was notorious for being an adult-oriented show.
That leads us to wonder, now that the WWE is relaunching on Netflix in 2025 — Netflix, who notoriously never censors anything — is it going “Rated R?”
Will the “More Attitude” era launch and scare away sensitive audiences, and will the WWE reclaim its bad boy status after the Netflix move?
Before we start to mass panic, let’s backtrack a little bit.
While TV cable didn’t have MPAA’s “R” rating, it was, for all purposes, a show written for mature adults and one many considered to be inappropriate for children.
With strong language, numerous double entendres, sexual content, blood and (simulated) guts, and crotch-grabs and middle fingers, the show quickly earned a reputation in the 1990s as being offensive to conservatives.
Related: Is Disney Leading a War Against Conservatives?
The Attitude Era was the brainchild of both Vince McMahon and head scriptwriter Vince Russo in response to the deafening counterculture of the 1990s.
By 1996, they saw the writing on the wall. The PG-era of WWE programming, catering to children and boomer moms and dads, was over. The rival wrestling promotion at the time, WCW, was winning the ratings war.
If the WWE was going to stay in business, it had to radically change the product.
The audience wanted angrier characters, more movie-style swearing, more ambiguous characters, neither hero nor villain — and more than anything else?
They wanted controversy.
McMahon knew that controversy sold. The 1990s saw the rise of counterculture icons like Howard Stern, Jerry Springer, and Quentin Tarantino, not to mention adult cartoons like South Park, Family Guy, and The Simpsons.
WWE management knew that teenagers wanted an edgier and angrier product.
One of the first “sacred cows” that the new WWE decided to hit was the traditional white heterosexual superhero trope, or “babyface.”
In the Attitude Era, they introduced LGBTQ characters. They introduced polyamorous lovers and sordid love triangle storylines.
Related: Is TV Failing Its LGBTQ Community?
They had bizarre plots involving drugs, miscarriages, necrophilia, weird May-December relationships (no, I mean really weird), and all sorts of shock TV that actually preceded the rise of “reality television.”
In other words, the WWE introduced many Gen Xers and Millennials to reality TV storylines that are now ubiquitous on the internet.
Therefore, when wrestling fans sometimes ask me, “Is the WWE going to return to the Attitude Era?”
My answer is, “How could it ever?”
That era was a coming-of-age period in a zeitgeist that no longer exists.
Mistakes were made, but they were all part of the journey to transform the WWE’s old-world locker room culture (now under intense scrutiny by the media) into the more professional working environment that exists today.
What a lot of people don’t understand is that the WWE funny-mirrors the real world, and particularly, American values.
Therefore, I can’t imagine any scenario in which the WWE would strive to offend its audience in ways that the Attitude Era did.
Related: Has Comedy Evolved to the Point that Friends Is Now Offensive?
WWE’s audience today is all-inclusive, zillennial and millenial-age, and its product is closely intertwined with social media.
WWE wants hashtags supporting its storylines and characters — not hashtags of protest or of canceling the product.
The bigger question is, since we know the WWE will never be “controversial” in the way that it used to be, will management be more lax with the language?
After all, wrestlers have always cursed — even in the 1970s and 1980s, when all they could get away with was “heck” or “dadgummit.”
Related: Some of the Darkest and Heaviest Moments On TV Came From Comedies
It’s important to note that foul language is nothing new to modern WWE programming. Even in the late 1990s, the company occasionally bleeped words or let one fly past the censors since Monday Night RAW was always filmed live.
Pay-per-views were also a bit blue with language and NSFW skits since parents had to order the event and provide age verification. Yes, wrestling definitely went dark and heavy for several years during the late 1990s.
In modern times, slang or offensive language is seen all over social media and is usually spoken by teens and children who know where to find offensive memes.
If we go by numbers, even PG-rated movies like Beetlejuice, Adventures in Baby Sitting, and Titanic had four-letter words.
Rival wrestling league AEW (which has many ex-WWE talents on its roster) has also been experimenting with adult language in recent years.
The audience is younger, and they aren’t offended by language — just dangerous ideas, attitudes, and behaviors that are passé.
But don’t worry too much if you’re still an old-fashioned Hulkamaniac or your inner child still roots for safe, white rapper John Cena.
WWE Monday Night RAW on Netflix will not turn into a Tarantino movie or even approach the average South Park episode in obscenity levels.
It’s just returning to its roots in edgy, confrontational reality television…
But minus the “Attitude.”
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