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What's the story?
John Cena has cut a number of risky promos throughout "The PG Era" of WWE and some of his recent promos that were aimed at The Undertaker have definitely pushed the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable with the new demographic of the WWE Universe.
It seems that despite this, even Cena doesn't think that WWE would be able to return to a time when promos were always on this level.
In case you didn't know...
The Attitude Era was a time when wrestling was considered to be at its most popular and since the main demographic was adults aged 18-35, the WWE knew that they could get away with a lot riskier material.
The past two decades have seen a huge shift on the wrestling scene and it seems that the main demographic is now children, which is they the company made their shows PG, but sometimes allow the odd curse word to slip.
There has been a lot of speculation about the ways that wrestling can get back to the "good old days" but it seems that even Cena doesn't think that the antics that were acceptable during the "Attitude Era" would be acceptable in WWE right now.
The heart of the matter
Cena has definitely been pushing the envelope with some of his promos that were aimed at the Undertaker ahead of their rumoured WrestleMania match, but when asked about if his rapper gimmick or even The Attitude Era would work today in a recent interview with Screen Rant, the former 16-time World Champion wasn't convinced it would.
"Coming in in 2002 you’re still riding the coattails of the Attitude Era. It’s 18-35-year-old males, it’s very visceral, the entertainment is very extreme. Fast forward to 2004, 2005, 2006, more families are showing up. and I don’t feel comfortable saying the things I was saying on the microphone because I got to look at a little kid and at that point, I’m supposed to be the good guy?
That’s not how a good guy is so I use the opportunity of the platform of The Marine – because the movie did reach a bunch of people – to genuinely, subtly, begin to change my character into more of a P.G. environment because those are the tools I’m dealt. I can do a butt chug scene if you put an ‘R’ on the movie but when you put a TV-PG on the show and you’re out there doing stuff that makes your audience feel uncomfortable, your career longevity is going to be nothing."
Career longevity is definitely something that Cena has had over the past decade and it seems that this is because of his ability to adapt to the changing times, which are obviously moving forward and not backward.
"So a lot of these guys today also want to do all the things we’re not supposed to do. That’s not being a good mechanic. You take the tools that you have to fix the problems in front and everybody’s like, hey, would you bring back the rap guy? It would bomb right now. It would bomb. One, because all those punch lines are inappropriate.
Especially, for now, they’re not P.G. so if I were to still come out in the outfit, I did, I managed to sneak one in against the Rock. Man, was it difficult to write those lines and I even had to say before I cut the promo, okay, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire so I’m sorry that I have to do this but it’s got to be done. I had to preface it with like earmuffs, kids, because it’s about to get pretty raw and even still meandering through all that I had a double entendre my way through something that I could possibly only do for one night, or it would not work right now. Neither would The Attitude Era."
What's next?
There was a recent report that confirmed that the US Network was set to allow riskier words to be used on their programming, but it seems that this is the closest that WWE will be getting to the antics of The Attitude Era in the coming years.
Author's take
"The Attitude Era" was acceptable in the 1990s because people weren't as easily offended, it wasn't about promoting the right thing to children and there was no social media to push WWE into changing their minds about things if fans didn't like a certain decision.
"The Attitude Era" was definitely a fantastic few years for WWE, but times have changed and that kind of violence, sexism, and foul-language is no longer acceptable on international TV, which is sometimes screened before the watershed at 7 pm.
Perhaps it's time to get behind the current era and see where the boundaries of the current era are and make the best of them.
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