WWE: How To Get Over in a PG World

Several top WWE stars have managed to work around the PG rating and get over with the 18-35 demographic.

Ever since WWE entered the much-dismayed “PG era” back in 2008, countless fans have complained over the years about how bad the product has been and how restricted the wrestlers have become. In reality, the shift in direction was a necessity for the company at the start as they settled more and more in being a publicly traded company on the NYSE, and recently with their partnership to ESPN as wrestling has become more accepted as a sport. You certainly don’t want flaming tables and bra and panties matches being the only representation of your sport on SportsCenter.

The PG era ended when Punk captured the WWE Championship for the first time five years ago and we are now in the Reality Era or New Era, depending on who you talk to, but PG remains very much the backbone of the product. While there certainly was a transitional phase and growing pains for both fans and wrestlers alike in getting accustomed to PG after essentially a decade of sex and violence, within the last few years, wrestlers have discovered how to work around the confines of PG, and perhaps more importantly, the fans have accepted that this is the lay of the land now, and we may as well go along for the ride. This doesn’t mean that anything lifted from a Saturday morning cartoon will work, as Roman Reigns found out with the ill-advised “sufferin’ succotash” line, but by understanding the rules, regulations, and restrictions, you can see what works and what won’t.

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The roster today doesn’t have the leeway, the pull, or the stroke to go out on live TV and drop obscenities and crude comments and get away with it as The Rock has done ever since he returned as a part-timer in 2011, so they’ve had to find other ways to get over. Interestingly enough, what many decry about the PG Era, wasn’t all that different from the tone and nature of WWE during the Golden Age and New Generation eras; from Hulk Hogan to Bret Hart, the company was essentially PG for a little over ten years.

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Future first-ballot hall of famer Chris Jericho, upon his most recent return to WWE, could have easily just rested on his laurels and rehashed many of his bread-and-butter catchphrases as The Rock has done. Instead, he has gotten over as a heel, yet again, with something new and fresh, and truthfully, unexpected. Seemingly going in the exact opposite direction of The Rock’s famous clever, wordy, over the top verbal assaults from years gone by, Jericho has instead resorted to perhaps the most elementary of insults: calling somebody a “stupid idiot”.

Taking his self-righteous honest man gimmick from his second run and feud with Shawn Michaels in 2008-2009, Jericho essentially stripped down all the big words he used to denigrate the audience’s capacity for comprehension. He flipped his own schtick and now uses the type of verbiage of the lowest common denominator that he used to frown upon. Brilliant.

Is it childish? Absolutely. Even more TV-Y7 than PG. But is it effective? Yes. Almost miraculously, “stupid idiot” has gotten over with the fans in a post-Attitude Era age

Jericho calling someone stupid isn’t new; he would often mock his opponent in the ring by referring to them as a “stupid, stupid man”; he simply combined it with his use of “idiot” in reference to an internet meme that arose after an encounter Jericho had with a fan during a match where in the fan incorrectly billed Y2J from Toronto. Is it childish? Absolutely. Even more TV-Y7 than PG. But is it effective? Yes. Almost miraculously, “stupid idiot” has gotten over with the fans in a post-Attitude Era age where fans long to hear cuss words thrown around in promos and for wrestlers to get at each other like an angry roast on World Star. It has gotten so over in fact that Jericho now gets a huge pop for even uttering the word “idiot” on TV as he did in a backstage segment at Money in the Bank. Additionally, fans have started to chant “stupid idiot” during Jericho’s matches.

As if “stupid idiot” wasn’t enough, Jericho has introduced the world to “The Gift of Jericho”, where in he strikes a pose that fans have seen over and over and over with various modifications through the years in the form of the Narcissist Lex Luger, the Masterpiece Chris Masters, or even a young Randy Orton and countless others. He closes his eyes and tilts up almost exactly like The Rock would do when he would “smell” the electricity in the air, but not before delivering the line “drink it in man”. It’s such a textbook and generic heel thing to do, but yet again, it has gotten over with the crowd.

It’s amazing what Jericho is able to get over. The man constantly reinvents himself with different characters and different catchphrases to fit the times. Much like how Lil Jon had the entire nation screaming “to the window, to the wall” in 2004 and then “turn down for what” in 2014, Jericho has consistently remained relevant in WWE, a testament to Jericho’s genius and ability as a performer.

In the case of The New Day, the trio of Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, and Big E were not in a position to reinvent themselves as Jericho had done, rather, to simply get more of an opportunity. If any of the three were in need to reinvent the wheel, it would have been Kofi; Woods and Big E were floating around with no real direction or purpose. The original New Day they were initially given was decidedly a product of the PG Era, and the trio knew from the jump that it was dead in the water. However, over the course of a year, the New Day has flipped the gimmick they were given on its head and become the hottest act in all of WWE.

tapping into the surreal, absurdist, internet-humor you would normally find on Adult Swim, the New Day morphed into lovable trash-talking Tumblr trolls

By tapping into the surreal, absurdist, internet-humor you would normally find on Adult Swim, the New Day shed the original black gospel gimmick and took the clap-happy, happy-go-lucky, power of positivity message into a different, almost sarcastic and ironic direction (unicorns, rainbows, and loud obnoxious trombone playing), morphing into the lovable trash-talking Tumblr trolls that we see today. The act is so good and so over with the crowd that the New Day have been able to go from being heels to babyfaces without having to change anything about them. In fact, the New Day have consistently pushed the envelope without crossing the line (and get away with it) as to what exactly classifies as “PG” as some of their segments have borderline entered TV-14 material from time to time.

On the most recent episode of Monday Night Raw, AJ Styles, and The Club decided to tap into the very real and at times overflowing hatred many of the WWE fans have for John Cena for over a decade and threatened to, verbatim, “beat up John Cena”. As simplistic and non-threatening as it sounds, especially in the UFC and MMA world that we live in today, it also managed to get over instantly with the crowd.

a huge portion of Cena’s fanbase is little children, many of whom can probably relate to the fear of being beaten up by bullies

As Jericho had done in going against The Rock’s use of overtly-descriptive insults, Styles, Gallows, and Anderson, went away from “kicking a**” or “whooping candy a**” or “opening a can of whoop a**” or any variation of it from the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression eras, and took it back to the playground: exuding classic schoolyard bully tendencies to jump other kids. Which is effective in the sense that, a huge portion of Cena’s fanbase is little children, many of whom can probably relate to the fear of being beaten up by bullies.

Much like they did for Jericho and the New Day, the audience popped every time the Club humorously played up that they were going to beat up John Cena. The Club even took the promo to social media where they turned it into a hashtag on Twitter, #BeatUpJohnCena.

Next: AJ Styles Really Wants to Beat Up John Cena

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Chris Jericho, the New Day, and The Club have proven that you don’t need to resort to inflammatory and derogatory one-liners, or controversial comments, or even foul language, to get over and elicit a response from the crowd in today’s WWE. We as the viewing audience have become over-exposed and desensitized to it. Ironically, now whenever The Rock does it, it feels antiquated and doesn’t have the same oomph in it, nor does it get the same type of shock value reaction as it used to back when he was on top of the world in the late 90s. Simply calling somebody a stupid idiot or threatening to beat them up is enough in 2016. Some may feel that it’s watered down and that the wrestlers restrict themselves, but in reality, it works and it’s effective. Juvenile toilet humor is out and ironic kiddie humor is in. Maybe we need to stop wanting to break every single rule all the time and instead, learn how to bend them.