Cheap Shots: The PG-Era is killing WWE

Cheap Shots are unfiltered, uncensored opinions, and those opinions reflect only the author!

The PG-era of WWE has a strangle hold on WWE. The PG-Era has ushered in the return of the gimmicks of the 80s, and given us a watered down product. Every time we fill a shift of them pushing forward here comes the PG-Era back around again. Change is inevitable, but we seem to be rolling back down hill, instead of progressing forward. History has a way of repeating itself, And for some strange reason, we are trying to relive the glory days with the PG-Era.

The beginning of the PG-Era

There was a time when we all love the 80s product of wrestling. WWE was the greatest thing are young minds had ever seen. We were happy with the state things were in, slowly though it began to taste stale. It wasn’t until the birth of the NWO that we realized that we needed some fresh air in wrestling. WWE answered the NWO call, with the Attitude Era. The product of wrestling had evolved and we all breathed the fresh air.  Years later, the air around WWE began to change again, this time it wasn’t so good. To me and many others I am sure, we seem to be stuck in this weird, modern day, 1980s wrestling show. Where WWE tries to forge forward but the echoes from the past keep creeping up.

PG-Era silliness

Wrestling has always had crazy gimmicks, there are some that work, and some that don’t. But the days of these cartoony storyline gimmicks have come and gone, even though Vince wants to relive the glory days. WWE  wants me to actually believe that Jason Jordan is Kurt Angle’s son. Instead, every time they mention this I get angry and say “how stupid do you think we are?”  WWE has always had these corny family story lines, but in this day and age, it cannot and does not work. So why does WWE keep trying?  WWE also wants me to believe that Jinder Mahal is from India, and hates America, when in reality he is from Canada. (The 1980’s called Vince, they want the Foreigner hates America gimmick back)

We have a tag team that carry hammers to the ring. How cheesy can we get? How about put we just give them some trash cans and instead of the Bludgeon Brothers we call them the Trash Brothers. The Bludgeon Brothers could easily fit in 1980’s wrestling. WWE now has a rule of no more blood, or foul language, or death defying matches except for the TLC Pay-Per-View we get every year. Every time we think we are forging away from the PG-Era we get pulled back in with this kind of modern day silliness.

The state things are in

Is everything that WWE does bad and gimmicky? No, but I am unsure why we keep trying to bring back gimmicks and tropes that can’t work anymore in this day and age. I understand we have to do a “family friendly” show. But, can we not try and push the envelope forward just a little bit. I would rather cheer, not  roll my eyes at WWE. Am I just getting old and my fond memories of wrestling are clouding my judgment of the current state of WWE?

Plead for the future.

I’m not saying that I want full blown Attitude Era resurgence. There was A LOT of things that did not work in that era. But, wrestling has to continue to evolve to keep people interested. Am I the only one that feels like some of this goofy tropes need to go to the way side? I am sure that people whom did not grow up with 80s and 90s wrestling is ok with this kind of stuff resurfacing, cause this type of WWE is all they have ever known. Modern day WWE needs to find a better middle ground between the Attitude Era and 80s wrestling because the PG-Era is not the answer. Can we try a PG-13 Era for a while and see how it goes?