5. Blood, Swearing And Sex
From 1998 to the summer of 2009, the WWE was no holds barred entertainment. Anything went. Even after the PG era kicked in, you still had Triple H smashing into Randy Orton's family home like a scene from a 18 rated horror movie. By 2010 however, the show had gone seriously down the family route. The lucrative corporate sponsorship market and Linda McMahon's senate dreams had convinced Vince McMahon that his product should hence forth be strictly family entertainment. History changed. The preceding era had been replete with strong violence, swearing and even "sex" (see Edge and Lita). But now these classic moments would be forgotten. Vince McMahon set about calling his product "family viewing" and claiming to have never done any of the extremities of other television shows. The truth is there isn't much that that McMahon didn't touch. Everything from the F word to bloody mugging has gone out on WWE broadcasts. Nowadays WWE retrospectives rarely acknowledge just how graphic the Attitude Era really was. The infamous bra and panties matches for example were borderline soft porn, and are now redacted from WWE's celebration of the attitude era. The blood and guts performances that so enticed audiences in the late 90's are well and truly cast out to history - and are unlikely to return any time soon. WWE is growing ever more into a corporate entertainment company, and arguably for the better.