10 Times WWE Caved To Public Pressure
2. A Change In Attitude
Vince McMahon's first response to a censorship campaign from the aggressive (and admittedly hypocritical) Parents Television Council campaign in 2000 was to rip the p*ss out of them. The Right To Censor's modus operandi was to crack down on the sex and violence of the Attitude Era, dressing midcarders The Godfather, Val Venis, Bull Buchanan and leader Steven Richards up like Morman missionaries (another McMahon swipe) and positioning them as irritating heels.
The RTC/PTC gag presumably had McMahon chuckling for months, but the real-life group's dedicated campaign did result in major sponsors getting itchy feet with WWE's near-the-knuckle product. The back end of the protests came right as the company subtly slipped from its mainstream pedestal too. An unending quest to reverse a ratings slide actually resulted in the organisation toning down the quotients most associated with growing public concern, with television numbers doing as much to scare advertisers as any protest group.
Little of the PTC's attempted takedown of WWE could be considered a success, but forcing Vince at his most bombastic to at least exhibit caution put them in front of the thousands of shareholders and board members screaming in his face about the eventual and costly failure of the XFL.