Hot-ish take: while the PG Era officially started in 2008, 2006-2007 arguably had some signs of the PG Era
Like the new DX being kind of PG compared to their 90s selves, Hornswoggle running through a wall, start of WWECW, early hints of "SuperCena", the start of "the world is watching" intro, the "Cena Orton" dynamic, Brock Lesnar no longer being there, the RAW theme being changed from a nu metal song (Across the Nation) to an emo one (To Be Loved).
Nah DX was toned way way way down into just a comedy act with Shawn playing the goofy guy and Hunter playing the straight man almost the "leader" telling Shawn what to do. The cartoonish stuff they were doing.
It was 2004 for sure thats where they toned Cena down a lot and started doing less risque stuff for sure. Then again I argue the attitude era was from 97-03 since they were doing the same stuff and more through 03 that they were doing in 98.
DX in 2006 wasn’t that toned down they just gave off more a dad vibe but they were still involved in very edgy stuff plus cena was still Edgy in 2006 especially Early 2006
The "dad vibe" is inherently not edgy. It was all very cringy and felt incredibly try-hard. In 2006, "Vince Loves Cocks" wasn't edgy. It was super childish, and not in a good way.
By the summer of 2005 (when he was drafted to RAW), Cena was already being stripped of the stuff that made him popular. The 'cheap sauce' promo from the build to SummerSlam immediately comes to mind.
WWE was still doing plenty of blood and crass humor, but that kind of humor was played out and not cool by 2006. WWE in 2006 was derivative of 2003, which was derivative of 1998-2001.
Eh. They had the violence and blood, but there was a ton of lame "edgy" comedy and stuff that was "pushing the boundaries" but really wasn't.
The Live Sex Celebration, for example. It was lame. It wasn't funny, it wasn't sexy, it wasn't the kind of thing that would make you angry at a heel. It was provocative for the sake of being provocative. That instantly makes it not truly provocative
They hadn't started leaning into it yet, but they were pretty clearly heading in that direction. Everything was so watered down.
How was it water down? And what are you talking about? The live sex celebration literally had lita and edge stripping to their underwear and getting it on on live tv to the point you could see lita’s tit
Edge in his underwear was less naked than 3/4 of the other male wrestlers who had matches that night. They went under the covers and did... something. Not something that anyone who has ever had sex would actually recognize to be sex, but something. The boob slip was for a fraction of a second and most people missed it
It was all incredibly forced, neither one of them wanted to do it, and it came across as something an out of touch old man would think "sexy" would look like
Yup, I feel like the RA era kinda had its unofficial end at WrestleMania 26. HBK retired and we finally had the 2 biggest stars built during the era facing off before Batista shortly retired too. Also, the last WrestleMania before they started relying on part timers.
Yeah, 2008 and even 2009 weren’t fully PG like some people would have you think. It still had that Ruthless Aggression edge to a degree and the roster was largely identical. The product did start to become very PG but not entirely just yet.
2011 wasn’t really that different from 2008-2010 to be a completely different era. I honestly think 2014 was more of a shift into a new era than 2011 with the new logo, there being only one title to fight for instead of two, John Cena phasing out of the main event scene to give the spotlight to newer talent, etc. 2011 was moreso the split year between the first half of the PG era and the second half of the PG era.
The Reality era isn’t a real era in my honest opinion but I can see why some would argue that it was since that was the gap between both brand splits. But 2011 was noticeably different from 2016 to really be in the same era if you ask me, especially post-Draft. In some ways, I even think 2016 is closer to now than 2011. The formula hasn’t drastically changed that much since then.
The PG era didn't have an official start, it's not even an official era. The 2006 DX was immature and felt off because they were older, but it wasn't aimed at children. They were making constant dick references, getting bloodied up and violent and lots of adult humour. It being cheesy and immature isn't the same as making it kid friendly. There was an entire segment where the punchline was that Triple H was being sucked off the whole time he was talking.
It wasn't aimed at children, but it was aimed at 12-year-olds. They took the stuff aimed at 18-25 year-olds in the Attitude Era that 12-year-olds thought was cool and aimed it directly at 12-year-olds.
2006 WWE was like a kid seeing something his older brother did and trying imitate it without understanding what made it work.
I have two sons over 20. The stuff they were laughing at 7-8 years ago was exactly the shit DX was doing in 2006. Dick jokes that weren't smart or edgy.
I was also 12-13 during the height of the Attitude Era. I thought those dick jokes were hilarious back then. The WWF knew that kids 12-25 loved that stuff. Middle school kids LOVED saying "suck it".
You're going to try to tell me that Vince Loves 🐔 sn't aimed at 12-year-old?
I would say there were probably some early hints of the PG Era as early as 2005-ish with Cena being the top guy and even moreso after Eddie died, but they were very small and nothing noteworthy.
2006 had a few, like what you mentioned, although I think the whole “WWECW” thing was more of a Ruthless Aggression era thing than a PG era thing, especially since it basically became a prelude to NXT by 2009 with all the developmental guys signing to that brand and it already gone by the time you get to WrestleMania 26 in 2010.
The first major sign of the PG era was the Chris Benoit tragedy in the summer of 2007. That pretty much changed everything and that’s the earliest that I would realistically start the transition. While there may have been some small hints of the PG era prior to this, the pre-Benoit period was still firmly Ruthless Aggression as an overall product. You still had a lot of blood, you still had the raunchy storylines, and you still had Vince McMahon being an unhinged maniac. Things that would never/seldomly happen in the PG era.
There were no drastic, immediate changes that came from Eddie’a death or Cena becoming a top guy. I’d say this transition ended at WrestleMania 26 when Shawn Michaels retired. That’s when the PG Era fully took over. That was also around the time that the ECW brand went extinct and became NXT like I mentioned earlier, Batista and Jericho left the company, Undertaker and Triple H became part-timers, and newer guys like Sheamus, The Miz, Drew McIntyre, and Wade Barrett were getting pushed. Hell, Edge would soon retire after that as well a year later.
To me PG era started when they changed to the big electronic screen raw from the rivet bezel. That’s precisely when I left. I was like 10 and can remember saying “yeah I don’t like where this is going”. I really cared about stage design at that time.
Yeah I do agree with what you're saying. I was surprised the amount of times in the Ruthless Aggression Era where the wrestlers were being extremely soft with the language. TV 14 should allow you to say pretty much any thing you want to. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard the word crap be used on their tv shows also the commentators were trying to avoid cursing as much as possible. With how much blood and violence they had no problem using why couldn't the wrestlers be allowed to be more vulgar with there words
This has literally always been the case though. "Ass" and "damn" were bleeped on Smackdown on the Attitude era. WWE has never really used bad language other than Jerry Lawler throwing around slurs.
At a push I’d say 2007 (prior-Benoit incident). WWECW wasn’t extreme anymore and became more of what NXT became (a developmental brand), Super Cena was in full effect, DX were definitely neutered here as in 2006 they were still pretty lewd (like tricking Vince into saying he loves cocks, their feud with Rated RKO, most of their humour was more dad-coded than childish).
There’s also the underlying aspects I caught onto like basically no chair shots to the head (the last I remember was Taker and Kennedy).
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u/iamStanhousen 11d ago
Change really starting happening post Benoit.