Excellent article Kev, are you going to blog on here on what your personal thoughts on the whole issue are?

Good read, Kevin. Not much new there for us die-hards, but an informative read for novices and casual fans.

The one comment I have to make is on Goldsmith's assertion that Linda's U.S. Senate aspirations are unrelated to WWE's shift in demographics; to be honest, I don't buy that at all. It seems that Goldsmith would have us believe that Linda made this decision overnight, on a whim. This simply is nonsensical. One doesn't decide to run for the Senate for a lark. It takes years of planning and millions of dollars, and is especially difficult for a newcomer to politics, which McMahon is. I'm not saying it's the sole reason for the switch, or even the main reason, but it factored in.

It seems if you are a man age 18-40, NOTHING is programmed for you. Outside of some FX shows and TNA, you have to be a child,female,to watch tv nowadays. Not just WWE but tv in general. I think its pathetic what WWE is. I watch Raw on monday b/c Jesse Ventura was on,thank god for tivo. I mean HBK and HHH using the DX gimmick making jokes geared for 12 y/o,when the ENTIRE freakin DX gimmick was gotten over on bein edgy and controvesial. Ill stick with TNA and their convulated stip matches and horrible booking.At least I feel like an adult watching it

Hey Kev. Great article and I grew up with the "attitude" era so I've never really seen a WWE like this. I think it can easily work. When people complain about the rating and how it affects the product negatively I want to slap them. When will people understand that it's not the rating that makes the shows better it's the writers and creative teams.

Great read and very informational to those who may not be knowledgeable to those who dumped wrestling during the Attitude Era and haven't checked back in since then.

Only one drawback....that bright orange t-shirt on Cena (the only orange allowed on a uniform should be for the O's, Florida and Syracuse)

Great article. I would have liked to see a mention the contrast of tv ratings and popularity between the Attitude era and the current PG 'Tude they have going on. Also interested in hearing your personal thoughts on it.

Excellent Article.

I definetly don't miss the sleezy women's matches from the attitude era, nor do I miss the raunchy backstage stuff.

What I do miss are great story lines. There are still a few from time to time, but are rushed too fast with the frequent PPV's.

For example, the classic ladder match between Shawn and Razor at WM 10. It fit the story. Now ladder matches are just done for no reason. We have a TLC PPV coming up and TLC doesn't fit any of the storys.

P.S. to my earlier comment -

The interviews are too scripted. In the Attitude era, the interviews got over a lot more because wrestlers came up with more of them (and the angles and storys) and were given more latitude. More often than not, doing interviews unscripted gets over better than some hollywood comedy writer who knows nothing about wrestling coming up with the lines.

That's one reason why we had mic legends like the Rock, Stone Cold and Shawn Micheals back then and now so many interviews are lame. Occasionally there's a good one, but it is certainly not the norm.

Hey Kevin,

How come you didn't mention that the average viewer for Raw is generally somewhere between 37 and 40?

Every week in the Observer, they publish the demos, and the average age is always in the late 30s.

RESPONSE FROM KE: There are a lot of statistics that I could have used but I didn't want to get too bogged down in numbers. The focus of the story was on WWE changing its rating to PG and producing a more family friendly product.

I don't mind the rampant sexual situations being taken out, not really needed. The divas are still sexy, just not slutty like before. Beth Phoenix can dress like Raisha Saeed and still make me feel good inside.
But bring back the blood.

Great article. I for one hate watching a cage match of any kind now or pretty much any gimick match that the WWE does.

How does one go from bleeding in a Hell in a Cell Match to no bleeding? I am of the opinion that the WWE is sending the wrong message to kids by not having blood. Kids "could" interpret this as something they could imitate and not get hurt doing. At least when there was blood "most" kids knew not to try this stuff.

I am a HUGE TNA fan as they are the closest thing to old school wrestling on TV. Give me the old territory days and I would be happy.

If anyone here believes that this sudden change to PG didn't happen because of Linda McMahan seeking a Senate seat than I must be crazy.

Ditto on the cage match comment. The WWE version has always been stupid. Escape the cage an you win? Why even lock up in a hold? Fastest climber wins! Back in the territory days the cage was brought out maybe once or twice a year and only for the biggest feuds. When they said "cage match" the size of the in-house audience increased markedly.

Hahaha Jericho just said "Imagine how the odds will multiply infinitesimally!" What a nut.
OK lets talk about some WWF female wrestling maybe late 80s.early 90s.Somewhere in there Vince started outfitting the girls in some kind of full-coverage catsuit/bodysuit/lycra/spandex/polyester I dont know I'm just surmising.I guess the purpose of this kind of outfit was that no matter how much skin you thought you saw,you really didnt see ANY.Also it made it a certainty that no "wardrobe malfunction" could occur.It was plainly obvious on TV though because the artificial fabric had a "herringbone" effect which was really obvious on TV.I dont know how it looked on house shows,I gave up going to WWF shows after the Saturday Night Massacree in 1984.
i seem to recall this being used on TV by Tammy Sytch,maybe Sable,maybe Trish Stratus.Maybe a lot of nameless workers.I dont even think Vince invented this idea,I think he stole it from David McLean over at GLOW.And it looked just as cheesy there.Just another dopey McMahon idea.

"A lovable leprechaun character"

My thesaurus is defective; it doesn't list "lovable" as one of the synonyms for "irritating-as-all-get-out". It also lists "irritating-as-all-get-out" as one complete word.

Really, though, all the people who like to see lovable leprechauns on TV are going to read your article and get excited and tune into RAW, and they are going to get a nearly leathal dose of effin' HORNSWOGGLE. You're a cruel, cruel man, Mr. Eck.

I just thought the fact that the kids-geared TV programming is having absolutely no effect on whether kids are actually watching the programming or not would be a relevant tidbit to bring up.

RESPONSE FROM KE: Fair point. While the ratings may not have moved in certain demos, I don't think there's any question that there are a lot more kids at the live events now.

I definitely agree with that. The Arena was crawling with kids in DX and Cena merch. last night.

I wore my Bret Hart shirt in honor of you Kevin.

RESPONSE FROM KE: So you're the one.

I agree with the point about more kids being at live shows. I remember during the attitude era/NWO era when wrestling came to Phoenix a lot more regularly than they do now. I wanted my daughter to become a fan of wrestling like her dad. Out of the 2 companies I felt that WCW was the only show to take her to during that time. Needless to say she never became a fan.

I still remember fondly that I use to make a weekend out of it with a buddy. Fly to Vegas to catch Halloween Havoc and fly home and attend Nitro live. We were always garanteed to fly with the wrestlers.

To comment futher on the territories days. As a kid you never really knew what was going on in the different territories unless you bought a wrestling magazine so you could keep up with your favorite wrestler. The best part is you kept wishing your favorite wrestler would come to the terrority where you got TV coverage and sure as anything they would eventually just show up. No real hype which was totally awesome.

I am still a fan and will always be but damn I miss the old NWA days.

By chance, did you happen to ask Donna Goldsmith about how the timeslots for RAW is very much NOT family-friendly? That was my first thought when I heard about the change (albeit, Smackdown! and Superstars are during family-viewing hours).

Therefore, I have been curious for a while now whether WWE plans on courting USA Network for an earlier timeslot.

RESPONSE FROM KE: I didn't, although with DVR, aren't time slots not as important as they used to be?

The programming WWE airs reminds me how very much I miss the nWo. Please, TNA, put the band back together and give us wrestling for adults.

Rob Brown just posted the comment of the week. That was hilarious. This is a good week for comments by guys named Rob (see Bret Hart said what).

I do understand WWE's point and the toning down of the product has worked, but wrestling is still wrestling. There has to be a happy medium from "The Attitude Era" to "The Family Era" and certain aspects should be kept.

The thing that gets me is the sexist presumption that all women must like John Cena, because we surely don't know enough to like anybody else.

Well, bugger that. *toasts Stone Cold*

RESPOSNE FROM KE: I don't think anyone should say "all" about anything. But it is a fact that Cena's fan base is made up largely of kids and females.

Actually cena didn't 'rise to prominence" till 2003 because he was unknown the year before.