WWE Trades Ruthless Aggression For PG | Wrestling Timelines
June 11, 2012 | Vince McMahon Mocks Jim Ross
The thing about PG is that the classification does not simply imply an absence of sexual or over-the-top violent content. If you are a parent or guardian doling out screen time to your small child, you also want to ensure that what they are watching has values. The material need not be expressly educational - but, ideally, it should not be mean-spirited. You don’t want your child watching a TV programme that enthusiastically ridicules marginalised communities, or people living with medical conditions or disabilities. It is unpleasant, and might arm them with a defence mechanism in a playground that is often a cruel and competitive battle for self-esteem.
On the June 11, 2012 episode of WWE Raw, Vince McMahon makes his grand return to programming. A sporadic presence nowadays, Vince pops in and out in order to pop a rating. He’s still playing Mr. McMahon, but this iteration of the character is a quasi-babyface. He’s a nasty big shot who makes everybody around him feel small, but he targets heels. He’s the love-to-hate Mr. McMahon here, a sort-of agent of chaos. In a show-long storyline, McMahon is on hand to appraise the job of idiot heel authority figure John Laurinaitis. McMahon gives Big Johnny an ultimatum; book a good show, or you’re fired. It is meant to be fun watching Vince make Laurinaitis squirm. Vince is the goodie. In other skits, Vince plays the life-of-the-party. It’s fun having Mr. McMahon back, isn’t it?!
Not if you’re Jim Ross, whose years-long Bell’s Palsy diagnosis Vince mocks, with horrifically exaggerated glee, in a backstage segment with Hornswoggle. This is reprehensible stuff with zero purpose. Even if Vince was playing a heel, it would be questionable in the extreme. He isn’t. You are meant to enjoy him in a “Oh, what is he like?!” sort of way.
Vince bullies Jim Ross because he gets off on it. He is widely and rightly criticised in wrestling circles, but this does not undermine WWE’s wider goals. The company is becoming synonymous with hokey John Cena-led fare; the ‘Unexpected John Cena’ meme is seeded this very year. Cena is the face of WWE, and he wears a gurning, beaming expression. He is the first thing people think of when they think of WWE. He’s lame and appeals to little kiddies, as the Rock pointed out in the build to WrestleMania 28.
For WWE, this is a very good thing.