In the heights of the much not missed PG-Era, WWE had to walk the fine line between being a family-friendly product whilst still maintaining the illusion of being a sporting establishment whose competitors actually sometimes didn't like each other and had to hurt each other to be the best. During said era, the amount and intensity of the violence was noticeable pared down, but WWE still had to give their major feuds the climatic pay-off that they always had done. The Last Man Standing match had always been one of the most brutal concepts in wrestling, where the match can only be won when you've hurt you're opponent so much that he can't stand up anymore. Before the PG rating, Last Man Standing matches had always been brutal affairs, and more often than not turned into bloodbaths. In 2008, John Cena and Batista were put into one of the matches, but were faced with the challenge of adhering to the new rules of the PG rating. In fairness, the match between wasn't just chain wrestling and headlocks, but it was noticeably less violent than the Last Man Standing matches of old. The match concluded when Cena found a non-violent and resourceful way to win, using duct tape to bind Batista's feet together around the ringpost. Big Dave left his duct-tape removal spray in his other trunks that night, so he couldn't answer the count of 10. Batista lost not because of the severe beating he received, but because he couldn't physically get to his feet even if he wanted to. As endings go, it might have been a bit of a cartoonish ending, but it was ingenious.
