WWE Goes PG | Moments That Changed Wrestling Forever
2. The Day
On July 21st, 2008, a very standard-for-the-times edition of Monday Night Raw occurred. It featured - to save you rushing back to watch it - Lance Cade defeating Paul London, Beth Phoenix beating Kelly Kelly, the trio of John Cena and Cryme Tyme going over Cody Rhodes, Ted Dibiase Jr and JBL, the team of Katie Lea and Paul Burchill defeating Mickie James and Kofi Kingston, a returning D'Lo Brown getting the win over Santino Marella and CM Punk and Dave Batista's World Heavyweight Champion match going to a disqualification.
The big angles featured 'The Animal' booking a title match for himself as an impromptu main event for the night, Chris Jericho sporting a suit and a monotone cadence for the first time as he entered what was to be a critically acclaimed next stage of his career, and - to be absolutely fair to everybody involved here - the brilliant first stages of awkward romance between Marella and eventual "Glammarella" partner Beth Phoenix. Up and down the show, it was a reflection of what had the chance of working, and an enormous slate of things that didn't. The Miz was barely two years into life as a WWE Superstar and was marooned on SmackDown to boot, but in contrast to the 'A-Lister's hyperbole about himself, the company had comfortably entered its must-miss era by then. There was nominal upward mobility, a near-psychopathic reliance on the audience-dividing John Cena as top babyface, and a monopolistic arrogance that resulted in a product that was simply dreary rather than outright bad. The traditional business metrics were highlighting this too - though WWE as an organisation had reversed course from a dire post-2001 period by the second half the decade, average television ratings continued to tumble, with 2008's 3.27 annual mean down from 2007's 3.61. There weren't even really spikes of note to haul the number in the other direction - WrestleMania 23 season ensured 4.0+ ratings on a weekly basis, but 12 months later, not even the prospect of Ric Flair's impending retirement or a miraculously-recovered Cena challenging for the WWE Championship again at WrestleMania 24 could achieve the same result.
In previous (and future) years, trends such as these typically resulted in sweeping, drastic changes. Some worked, others didn't, but with the rise of the Attitude Era specifically in the face of the New World Order-led WCW, those documenting WWE history were always keen to point out how creatively bold the company had been when they were in the trenches of a ratings war. Because of everything that had happened in 2007 though, WWE couldn't frame this the same way lest they acknowledge anything that disastrous actually happened. Trapped between needing to make a shift whilst pretending they hadn't, the company actually mastered the task at hand. July 28th's Raw was simply incredibly boring and ineffective too. But the rating at the start denoted a whole new world. Disney soundtrack run-in very much intended.
By by switching Raw from TV-14 to PG for the first time since things went in the opposite direction in 1999, the brand had made a seismic decision that stood to have a knock-on effect on every single aspect of the on-screen product. Or did it? Raw was anything but chaos, despite the weird call to make Mike Adamle the new General Manager. The first thing he did was book a John Cena/Dave Batista match for SummerSlam, which while fresh, wasn't exactly ripping the script up from what the product had looked like for the last few years. The show certainly wasn't anywhere near as obviously different as many confused critics might have you believe. Sudden removals of blood, headshots and unnecessary violence were inserted to play well with advertisers and sponsors, and to a lesser extent extend careers and lives by decades. It perhaps cut down on the odd painkiller addiction too, though wrestling is such a brutal living that it'd be naïve to assume such things ground to a complete halt.
WWE have always followed the money, and more on that coming up, but even the brighter lights were still undercut by the dark heart at the centre of the operation. At the post-Benoit congressional hearings, Vince McMahon spoke about reaching out to former/any talent that had experienced problems with drugs and alcohol and offering them free rehab. It married up with the new image the company were portraying, but the man at the very top didn't pull his punches when pressed on it. In his own words; “Two words: public relations. That’s it. I do not feel any sense of responsibility for anyone of whatever their age is who has passed along and has bad habits and overdoses for drugs. Sorry, I don’t feel any responsibility for that. Nonetheless, that’s why we’re [sending the letter]. It is a magnanimous gesture.”.
Magnanimous to ex-wrestlers, open-armed to sponsors, and cap-in-hand to parents to give the company another chance with some distance from yet another horrendous scandal. Tick, tick, tick.
But what of the hardcores?