10 Times Vince McMahon Allowed Smoking On WWE TV

7. Dean Ambrose

When WWE went PG over a decade ago, it cleaned up its brand image and made all of its programming, its performers, its live shows and its merchandise all directly marketed to children. Gone were Edge’s ‘Sex & Violence’ t-shirts and in were John Cena snow globes. The first big step WWE took towards this was mandating ‘family friendly entertainment’ policies in matches. They rid all blading/blood, chair shots to the head and sex/innuendo from their screens. They also got more stringent on existing policies, erasing all references to smoking and tobacco even with the announcers’ commentary.

Dean Ambrose was a modern day exception to WWE’s no smoking on air rule. How? 2K Sports were the ones in charge of filming, not WWE. Terminator Genisys (that CGI mess) struck up a partnership with WWE to promote the Terminator character in its video game 2K16, with the T-800 actually being a playable character for all those who preordered the game.

Arnold Schwarzenegger reprised his role as The Terminator in a 2K16 commercial that paid tribute to Terminator 2 Judgement Day’s iconic bar/fight scene. You know the one - “I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.” With Dean taking the role of the greasy biker who blows a load of cigar smoke in the cyborg’s face and instantly regrets it.

WWE then had to heavily promote the hell out of this in its programming at the time, breaking one of its cardinal rules.