10 Times WWE Directly Insulted Your Intelligence
1. The Owen Hart Voice
When Owen Hart tragically passed away at Over The Edge 1999, Jim Ross provided calm counsel in the face of unthinkable and desperate heartbreak. It was a thankless task he still performed with the deft skill and aplomb that solidified his reputation as the greatest announcer in the history of the industry.
Then WWE monetised it.
Ross and partner Jerry Lawler were understandably somber in tone and timbre for the rest of the evening, but the gravitas that came in-build with that grieving was then ghoulishly mined for storyline heft. Chyna's neck injury angle against the Right To Censor was the first obvious and unpleasant rolling out of it, with the company relying on it so often in the years that followed that it had lost all meaning like everything else. Years after that, the impact of those voices had been reduced to such an extent that silence was required instead.
A man died, and WWE normalised the reaction. This was them operating at their dark worst and capitalist best.