“It was said to us that the Rock interviews and Heyman promo are considered the official end of the PG era. This isn’t to say that the TV shows will be changing. That is something talked about but no decision has been made, but I’m guessing a decision will be made at the end of the year when Raw goes to Netflix and NXT to CW, based on what those broadcasters want and also what sponsors will be comfortable with. So that will be determined months from now, but the attempts to keep things PG in the big picture which had been a big thing to the point of the memo being sent out about it several weeks back, such as in social media or in non-television shows, is now no longer the case.“
“Another thing about the Heyman speech, which set social media records for a Hall of Fame speech viewing, is that it was also meant as the spiritual closing of the book by WWE on ECW and essentially having it be the Hall of Fame key act. That’s why Heyman spent so much time on it, why Stephanie McMahon wore an ECW bonnet in the front row during the speech and why Tommy Dreamer, RVD and The Dudleys were placed where they were to hug Heyman as he came out. Heyman was going in any way as Paul Levesque’s first-ever Hall of Fame pick, and being in Philadelphia, but it was very much to acknowledge ECW in Philadelphia.”
In some ways, it would be great for WWE to get rid of the kiddy image that it holds.
A lot of people will say “it’ll just be like the attitude era again”, but you can’t replicate the 90’s. It was a product of its time that would just look incredibly cringeworthy in 2024, unless Limp Bizkit, “puppies”, and unlimited access to cocaine becomes popular again. I think that Triple H is smart enough to not go down this route, but we’ll see what “edge” looks like in what is still a very commercial product. Pair this with the rise of combat sports, and I can’t really see how WWE plays this.
The best description I’ve seen of pro wrestling today is “AEW knows that pro wrestling is basically a shounen anime, and acts as such. WWE acts like it’s a serious sport, and has to embrace the theatrics as family friendly”. I’m really interested in how a HHH backed WWE will play this, because it’ll have to look very different to what HHH popularised.