10 WWE Attempts To Capitalise On Popular Culture

As anyone who has seen the clip of Vince McMahon shouting ‘He’s Gonna Puke!’ would attest, the late ‘90s was a different time. The 1950s were also a very different time from the 1990s, however, so it is absolutely baffling as to why on 26 April 1999, the WWF decided to create a gimmick based around Leave It To Beaver, a family sitcom that was broadcast in the US between 1957 and 1963.

While the WWE isn’t necessarily always up to date with its cultural references (Jerry Springer was given his own show on the company’s network in 2015), an attempt to capitalise on a piece of pop culture from forty years prior was confusing to say the least. Furthering the perplexity was the realisation that the WWF’s latest character, Beaver Cleavage, was a grown adult masquerading as the innocent boy from the show, who participated in incestuous sexual conversations with his mother.

Anybody betting on the fact that the WWF would realise their error and remove the character from TV were sadly mistaken, as vignettes were aired for a further month, with the character even getting a win over Christian (adding fuel to the rumour that McMahon, for some reason, really hates Christian’s face). The gimmick was finally dropped on 21 June 1999, with a kayfabe breaking ‘Chaz’ stating that he just couldn’t do it anymore. Two questions will linger forever more. After supposedly suggesting an incest storyline with Stephanie, will Vince ever relent in attempting to turn every conceivable, horrible human act into a wrestling storyline? Also, discounting the endless things wrong with the Cleavage character, was there a sound reason to exploiting a character from a television show aired in 1957? It’s probably best if we leave this one alone…