WWE Trades Ruthless Aggression For PG | Wrestling Timelines
January 27, 2012 | Flatulent Natalya
Years later, when guesting on the Masked Man Show podcast in August 2023, high-ranking creative writer Brian Gewirtz - synonymous among wrestling fans as the man responsible for the unfunny dreck that plagues the product - blames the PG directive. “I thought it was stifling,” Gewirtz says. What Gewirtz fails to acknowledge is that WWE operated under family-friendly restrictions during its Golden Era.
The WWF of old told wonderful, unforgettable stories without resorting to edgelord rubbish. The epic saga of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth - which fuelled the biggest pay-per-view buy rate of the Golden Era at WrestleMania 5, and culminated in the most feel-good WWE moment ever at WrestleMania 7 - unfolded without alienating sponsors or drawing negative press attention. It was obviously possible to do something like this from 2008 onwards; WWE was just woefully unequipped to do so, because Vince was miles past-it and nobody dared challenge him.
Because WWE no longer resembles a pro wrestling promotion by design in 2012, it is essentially law that it must attempt to be funny - and with the PG guardrails in place, Vince McMahon is at a loss. There are two dimensions to his sense of humour; he can be both brilliantly cruel and puerile. This is the man who, in the Attitude Era, booked the Big Boss Man to raid the Big Show’s father’s funeral and booked the Rock to hit his finisher on the British Bulldog on a tray of dog sh*t. He could not do the black comedy you’re not supposed to laugh at during the PG Era, which is how we arrive at flatulent Natalya.
On the January 27, 2012 edition of SmackDown, Natalya asks Teddy Long for a rematch with Tamina before breaking wind. She leaves the scene embarrassed as Long and Aksana quickly follow. Santino Marella enters the frame and essentially acts like the gas is toxic. There are two sounds worse than the flatulence sound effect, somehow; the eerie absence of noise made by those watching the tron in the arena, and Michael Cole’s obviously fake laughter. The latter sound defines this period of WWE. It is the sound of everybody not named Vince McMahon knowing just how bad this drivel is and failing to pretend that it isn’t.
There’s no punchline. There is no incident that makes Natalya do this. There is no sense that Natalya is doing this at the least appropriate time. Fart jokes are the oldest in the entire genre. Book a wedding or a funeral, and have her fart there. Nope: she simply does it, just in time for Santino or Hornswoggle to walk into the shot and pretend that the smell has killed them. These aren’t bad jokes. They aren’t jokes at all. Eventually, Natalya will become proud of her farts, letting rip on purpose to punish Eve Torres for her cruel treatment of Zack Ryder.
Incredibly, in 2012, a chaotic time known for “stop/start pushes”, this is one of the most notable examples of character development.