What if WWE goes back to TV-14?
The Monday Night War saw WWE do what it never had before in eschewing sport and a sense of family entertainment in favor of The Attitude Era. Attitude was rooted in letting wrestlers show their real personalities more, cut loose, and focus on more true to life style storytelling, as opposed to the cartoonish standard established in the 1980s and 1990s.
The concept worked, developing acts like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and D-Generation X that put WWE on top of the wrestling world once and, seemingly, for all.
While WWE doesn’t have any true viable challengers at this point, there are nonetheless those fans who pine for the way the company once was. Since retreating to a more family friendly and kid oriented presentation, the company has lost some of the appeal it once had to a segment of fans.
But what if WWE were to move back toward the TV-14 standard it once operated at, with more mature content, vulgar language, over the top violence, and adult content? This article takes a look at five likely outcomes.
5. Dean Ambrose on top
It’s hard to imagine a lot of today’s top WWE stars operating in a period more like the Attitude Era. That’s not to say they couldn’t succeed in that kind of environment, but even veteran talents who have been stable presences on the main roster for a decade like Dolph Ziggler, Kofi Kingston, and The Miz have simply never had to present their characters in an edgier way, and we simply don’t know what that would look like.
Dean Ambrose is an outlier because, unlike most talents on the main roster today, he’s one of the few whose character has come off as noticeably neutered and not as compelling as it could be with some accents of Attitude.
He’s cast as a little crazed and as an agent of chaos. Imagine if, rather than working a comedic shtick he never seemed comfortable with as a face, he’d been able to truly cut loose in the kinds of violent attacks he had a history of pre-WWE.
Especially with his new heel turn, Ambrose could be WWE top star if the whole brand leaned TV-14.