Well-known wrestling writer Vince Russo, who’s famous for his work in the WWE, recently spoke out about the problems that are plaguing the franchise, the biggest being the poor ratings of the series – which last experienced such a worrying dip way back in the 1990s.
Russo expressed his view on franchises problems in the recent issue of Nuclear Heat and even threw light of the ratings issue – reports wrestlinginc.
On Nuclear Heat, Russo brought about the March 30th, 1998 episode of Raw, famous for “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s title triumph over Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XIV, which also enabled WWF to edge out WCW in terms of ratings.
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"(Stone Cold) has a confrontation with Vince McMahon, he uses some foul language, he gets arrested. From there, there's a turn on Faarooq by the Rock. X-Pac joins DX and uses some choice language. There's a cage match with some violence between New Age Outlaws, Mick Foley and Chainsaw Charlie," Russo said.
The writer also explained that the reason for the show’s slump could also be down to the type of rating it received and brought up the incident of Sable dressing inappropriately, making the show unfit for children.
"I finished watching the show, and Jeff Lane says 'it was rated TV-PG.' The same exact rating that Raw has today. The same rating that people are blaming the low (Raw) ratings on. People say it can't be dangerous and out of the box because it's TV-PG. This show was TV-PG, the same exact rating, and we saw language, violence and sexuality," Russo said.
The 54-year-old was also of the opinion that WWE were playing it too safe and were more concerned with pleasing the rating board than providing good television.
"Everything we did on this show, you're allowed to do today on a TV-PG show. WWE is nowhere near the TV-PG line, they're TV-PC, politically correct. That's what they're rated. Their limitations have nothing to do with the TV-PG rating," Russo said.
Russo is one man whose words shouldn’t be taken with a pinch of salt as few know the business better than him. After a long stint with WWF, Russo moved across various franchises and has authored several books. the most famous being Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification.
