BellaOnline Forums Sports Wrestling wWWE has Rock and Roll, sex and now drugs...

Is there no end to the lows the WWE will sink too for ratings?

Stephanie McMahon "drugged" Shawn Micheals before his match with Shane McMahon and Poor Shawn was staggering, stumbling blind and was at Shane O'Mac's mercy.

Obviously, it's part of a story line. However, with all of the stuff in the news about drugs, especially date rape drugs and now they're showing it being used in wrestling.

Vinnie's going to keep pushing the envelope and one day it's going to come back and haunt him.

Also, I don't think it's right that they should celebrate any spread in any adult magazine with young children in the audience. I was embarrassed for those parents there and the parents watching at home. However, I know that subject has been hit upon many times as well and it's like beating a dead horse. What's the sense of it?

Sorry. Further rants from a disgruntled fan <img src="/images/graemlins/computer.gif" alt="" />

The drugging thing was so immature and silly. I just shook my head because, if that is all WWE can think of, I'm worried.

Stephanie's pregnancy being written in was OK but what did fans think who don't realize she is married to Triple H in real life? Many fans think she was faking the pregnancy thing to make Shawn feel sorry for her when, in reality, her baby is due in July.

The Playboy thing is done every year and they didn't show much skin so I wasn't too down on it.

I was much more down on how lame the "drugged Shawn" storyline was. Yeck. The plan was for Marty Jannetty to be forced to wrestle Shawn, I believe, but Marty had trouble getting the OK to travel to Raw so that's what they came up with....

I wish they would have called me or any one of you. We could have come up with better. lol.

Anyone that takes children to the matches or lets them view it on TV should know that it is going to be a Adult show,but I agree that the drugging was not a good idea.I have 3 boys and they grew up going to all the local matches, it was our family thing. By the way they grew up fine.

To advertise drugs in any fashion is just stupid, talk about giving people the wrong impression about the sport?!

A lot of the story lines need to be looked at as so many of them currently are very tasteless...

Recently I tend to spend about 10-15 minutes every show telling my kids about what they should not do and why, ie use of drugs and the dangers of using them etc..

My kids were literally weaned on wrestling and now, at 20 and 15, neither smoke, drink, take drugs, has ever gotten into legal trouble, or even swear around us. They were right in the hub of WCW traveling with me from town to town, arena to arena. The backstage of the arenas were more familiar than their own home for a few years. BUT....

If I had little kids now, I would definitely either tape the show so I know what they will do before my kid sees it or explain as I did with my kids that wrestling is not real life and what they say or do is not cool (if it is bad) and the wrestlers are just playing a role like actors do and they don't really hate America, take drugs, beat up women, etc.

I doubt I would take a little kid (Under about 8) to a WWE show though.

Actually my biggest worry is that they will emulate the wrestling moves more than seeing Vince's bare butt or women in skimpy clothes.

Still, Vince is making a mockery of his own drug policy by first saying he wanted the old "pill popping party boy Shawn back" and then looking in the camera with a goofy smile and saying "Don't take drugs". That wasn't needed and it just seems to me he is laughing in the face of his own policy.

But who knows with Vince these days?

By the way, neither of my sons watches wrestling AT ALL and they think it is dumb. My older one said it lost all appeal for him when Papa Shango, Warrior, and UT stopped being surreal. The younger one is just sick of hanging out with wrestlers and they mean nothing to him on TV. Maybe I OD'd them! lol

The drugging of Shawn was kind of on the silly side, but as far as the hypocracy, I really don't pay it no mind. Turn on the news any day of the week and you will see stories about drugs, and violence and who knows what else, and THAT'S for real. As far as the sex content and inuendo on wrestling, again, turn on the news, or tv. Heck, soap operas during the day show a lot of racey programming. You can't throw bleach on everything and make it squeaky clean, especailly wrestling. Wrestling is a good berometer for what popular culture is, if you have a problem what's on wrestling, I venture to say you have a problem with life in general. That is my humble opinion, and I hope I didn't offend anyone, that was not my intention. If so, I apologize.

Chris

A lot of people think that way and I am not so sure I do. I realize that wrestling isn't supposed to be squeaky clean and I don't mind a lot of what they do. I roll my eyes at a lot of it (Vince thinks all women kiss on the lips, all fart jokes are hilarious, all women must have enormous breasts or no one will find them attractive except Stacey who had the legs, that wrestlers should look like bodybuilders even if they can't move in the ring...lot of eye rolling).

I don't think, though, that if Vince (or any promotion head) wants to sell merchandise to kids - foam fingers, little shirts, masks, toys, etc., he should push the envelope too far.

The news is what it is. It's a terrible reality.

Soaps don't cater to kids nor want them to watch and I am relatively certain most little kids would be bored to death watching a soap opera.

But wrestling is magic to kids. They love it. And that's cool but what Vince (and others) have done is to try to create a product that adults (who buy the PPVs and have the money) will watch and want to be titillated by while still catering to the 7 and 8 year olds by having cartoony characters and zillions of toys and merchandise for them.

He wants it all. Most shows appeal to certain demographics. Adult shows like (for example) CSI go for the older market. Cartoons go for the younger market. Sitcoms gof or another set of demos.

WWE tries to go for ALL demos which I don't think can be done without some thought on the part of the people writing.

If they want 7 and 8 years olds in the audience, maybe having live sex in the ring isn't the best idea. If they want only adults, maybe the cartoony stuff can go.

I just want WWE to be a little bit responsible for themselves and their storylines.

At least the Tim White stuff is off TV. But accessible to all anyway.

Parents have to decide what they want their kids to see. If wrestling isn't it, they should turn it off.

When my kids watched, it was clean. A morning show was what they watched and the violence was there of course but none of the rest of the stuff. And, as I said, I do worry about kids trying to wrestle and hurting someone or themselves. That is why I sat with my son when he was watching and pointed out that the moves these people do are not simple and they DO hurt but that they are done but people who are trained and that the two guys in the ring don't really want to hurt each other.

It didn't hit home until we were at a show and my son saw two rivals on TV sitting in the hotel restaurant together laughing and eating a meal together.

Hopefully parents clue kids in to what is real and what isn't and, if they are upset by the content, either don't let their kids watch or edit what they see.

If a parent brings a kid to a show and is offended by what happens, it's really their own fault. WWE is not politically correct even though they see all the little faces out there. (I wish they were a little less crass like with the Eddie Guerrero storylines they have used since his death but I know they will never be.)

We all have to decide for ourselves what is offensive and what isn't.

Wow, ramble much? I just wrote a column! lol

Well Patty, an excellent commentary, if I do say so myself. Ok, I was reaching with the soap opera analogy, but have you watched the cartoons out there lately? They arn't so innocent! And I do have my "problems" with certain choices WWE, amongst other promotions, for instance the recent dabacle with Randy Orton talking about my personal hero Eddie Guerrero the way he did. That was beyond tasteless, and it made me more then a little sick to my stomach for his family and close friends. The Tim White angle is stupid, and doesn't make sense to me, that is WWE reaching. But I stand by everything else I said. Vince is doing the smart business thing going after the adult market who spends huge PPV money. Now an argument can be made that the demo of kids is just as big, if not bigger, and that maybe Vince is doing what he is doing because he simply can, but if you are a parent, tape the show, edit out what you don't want them to see. Talk to and explain to your kids the very things you did for your son. I can tell you wrestling has been in a bit of a rut with idiotic storylines and the pushing of the envelope, part of that is because there is no more competition since Vince cornered the market so they got stale, but thats another post for another time. At the end of the day don't turn over the raising of your kids to the tv, if you have that much of a problem with it, or you don't have time to sit for a chat with your kids to explain the finer points, use the magical invention of the remote control and turn the channel. And that's all I got to say about that! :-)

I agree that parents are the ones who need to monitor what their kids watch. If parents didn't take their kids to wrestling, the market for toys would go down, and either the product would change or the target demo would change.

I think TNA is a safer alternative for kids if people are worried about sex, drugs, and all that. However, all wrestling is violent and the violence is what people need to watch for because kids have no idea the damage they could cause trying to wrestle. I remember walking into my kid's room only to see him trying to piledrive his brother. I about died. Sheesh.

But adults are getting offended as well. Sure we can say if you don't like it, turn it off but there are some fans who love the wrestling but hate how far the promotion goes with storylines. I was burning mad about the Eddie stuff, so mad that I didn't get too into it on the BellaOnline website. It would have come off as a rant.

I can always tell when Vince is getting desperate. He resorts to shock tactics and silliness. He can do all this because he is back on USA and they allow it all.

I guess all we can do is either ignore the silly or offensive stuff and enjoy the good stuff or not watch. There isn't much else we CAN do. Ratings will reflect what fans want and WWE will have to change. But they need competition. ASAP.

Hi,
I've been reading the forum on this topic and just a few things. It's very true that as parents we take the lead on our children. I'm a mother of two boys(17&19) thankfully they grew up fine and should I say in spite of being huge fans of Austin, Razor, Ultimate,Diesel and the list goes on.
And I do have to agree with Chris that wrestling can be the barometer of popular culture.
In re: to the wonderful wacky and scary world of wrestling I miss the tongue in cheek storylines and at times downright absurdidly funny storylines. I'm thinking of Mankind's Mr. Socko and when The Rock really started to rock and Austin beating up Mcmahon. Looking back on that era which is when I really got into wrestling I found that when WWE went into funny and just plain silly storylines is when it worked. It showed that not taking yourself to seriously and poking fun at yourself can reach all the demographics you want to reach; it was kinda like bringing the kid out in you. . I've missed SD but Burchill's pirate is an example of where I'm going with this. Now with Johnny Depp's new Pirates movie coming they can really play it up. The Boogeyman is another character in spite of his limited ability it's the character that works and Sharmell putting on a beekeeepers outfit is hilarious. I like the silly side of storylines they're fun and completely safe. It's when you go into dark territory like the drug storylines that after watching it you wonder ok. what was the point of that? and most of these storylines are shortlived and anticlimatic. Now a pirate, well that's another story..............