WWE Raw switching to TV-14 rating
Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast broke the news today that Monday Night Raw will be ditching its TV-PG rating starting from the July 18 episode and will return to TV-14.
This effectively ends the “PG Era” of WWE which started on July 22, 2008 in a bid to attract a wider audience and more corporate sponsors with family-friendly programming.
While WWE is not going back to it’s “Attitude Era” days, especially since the majority of that type of stuff won’t fly in today’s woken world, a TV-14 rating will allow everyone to be a bit more edgy, both when it comes to on-screen presentation as well as on the microphone.
The transition to PG in 2008 did not go down very well with wrestling fans but as society moved more towards being politically correct throughout the years, it was certainly a decision that made sense business-wise.
Smackdown has always been rated TV-PG since its inception in 1999 and Zarian only mentioned that it will be Raw which moves to TV-14.
Granted, this is how it used to be. Smackdown was PG while Raw was not. Now, this doesnt mean much, as those with more than 2 brain cells know its not about rating, its about writing. Smackdown had better stories while Raw had Triple H’s Reign of Terror and Katie Vick. They seriously had to break up the Smackdown 6 and sent Edge, Angle, and Benoit to Raw. Then it was Cena when he captured the championship.
Presently, i believe Smackdown is still better.
Now, another thing to note, is this may just be a rumor. We wont know for sure until the time comes.
I feel like this rating argument is far more an internet tantrum than anything else. I don’t think a PG or TV-14 wrestling program is necessarily better than each other. You can make interesting characters and stories under either umbrella.
But it also gives me vibes of the same people who desperately want there to be this line in the sand between “adult” and “kiddie” pretty much only so they can consider themselves the intelligent adult looking down on stupid people that like kiddie stuff.
Here’s a novel idea…
The “Story” has already been debunked – why not remove it?