WWE Hot Take: Paul Heyman, Eric Bischoff Must End PG Era to Save Raw, SmackDown

Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff are taking over Raw and SmackDown, respectively. 

Talk about a sentence WWE fans never thought they would see. 

WWE has hired the duo to serve as executive director of their respective programs. These are new positions created within the company, which is a bigger deal in a company of this size and stature than fans might realize. Everything still presumably runs through Vince McMahon, but the move is an admission the product is stale, if not in some danger. 

This is nothing but good news—the PG era has to go away. 

Right now. 

The PG era was a good way for WWE to cozy up to sponsors while seeking out television deals and moving as much merch as possible, but it has run its course.

Think about the past few months in wrestling and what's to come. WWE has a big deal with Fox to move SmackDown over there in the fall. This is a huge, huge deal. And yet right now, WWE is bleeding talent (Dean Ambrose), missing others (Sasha Banks), losing some attention to rising competitors (All Elite Wrestling) and the ratings have taken a hit.

Last week's Raw saw a rise in ratings, but they remain a red flag—there are no more excuses like running up against the NBA playoffs or, even worse, the NFL. 

Heyman and Bischoff are a direct response to these problems, which should mean a quick return to non-PG programming. Funnily enough, Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio reported (h/t Marc Middleton of Wrestling Inc.) that WWE is starting to realize it might have a problem retaining a teenage audience. Those teenagers move merch, subscribe to the network and have the chance of becoming lifelong fans before passing it on to their kids. 

The PG era is seemingly starting to get the boot in any case. Specifics about when Heyman and Bischoff actually started their roles is shaky. But the July 1 edition of Raw featured an announcer dropping a "holy s--t" on live air despite the broadcast being on a delay. The next night on SmackDown, WWE champion Kofi Kingston flipped the bird at Samoa Joe and the cameras "accidentally" caught it. 

It's a start. 

Getting as far away as possible from a strict adherence to PG programming isn't so much about keeping fans engaged as much as it is creating new fans. When outsiders look at the product, they don't see anything special. They don't see a reason to dive into five hours of weekly programming. There isn't a fun Superstar who can cross over into the mainstream like The Rock did.

A tonal shift creates must-see moments and an anything-can-happen vibe, not silly "wildcard" rules that are thrown out on a whim. Really, not even silly "Superstar Shake-ups" either. How hard is it for WWE to see the popularity of the NFL draft and not do something along those lines once a year?

Anyway, keep in mind a simple disclaimer: None of this matters if it isn't executed well. And yes, one could say that about anything. But wrestling fans are nostalgic about the Attitude Era not just because characters dropped random f-bombs and got violent in innovative ways. 

The underlying nostalgia comes from incredible character-building and storylines. The non-PG stuff merely served as a foundation, if not amplified good writing and characters. If Heyman and Bischoff don't find a way to gel it all together like the desperate WWE of the '90s did, a shift away from PG won't matter. 

Shock value isn't going to work much. This is 2019. Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley slamming through the stage on Raw was cool, but there isn't much of a way to one-up on that. Wrestling fans see barbaric, shocking things every week. Hardcore matches, chair shots gone wrong, injuries. Social media and the internet makes it all widely available, so shock value only goes so far. The Strowman-Lashley moment was good, but more importantly—does it actually lead to anything worthwhile for the characters?

Countless examples of botched character work has robbed WWE of stars. In a literal sense, Ambrose went back to his Jon Moxley roots with AEW because he was tired of looking like a joke who took needles in the butt on live television. Bray Wyatt is in the middle of a massive reboot because he was jokingly referred to by fans as "The Eater of Pins," not the "Eater of Worlds," because he was relentlessly made to lose. 

So what happens now? AJ Styles is starting to get The Club back together, which is good. Strowman is flirting with Big Show status if things don't change. Ricochet has potential but can't talk. Finn Balor is missing in action. Aleister Black, another potential Undertaker type, is cutting months and months of promos about ding-dong ditch. Samoa Joe, the company's best talker, is feuding with Kingston but could get hurt more with another loss. Brock Lesnar is off somewhere beatboxing with a briefcase for some inexplicable reason. 

It goes on and on. The talent is there for WWE to start carving out major stars. But Heyman's ideas have to be allowed to flourish within the non-PG setting. Bischoff, who has been out of the game for a long time, must do the same. The talent must be able to shake free of a convoluted writing process. 

On paper, this could mean massive things for the next generation, headed up by Black, Ali and Ricochet. It could breathe new life into the tweener types who spar on social media better than they do on the mic. It could even mean the moving away from silly filler like an Undertaker tag match and prominent placement for Shane McMahon while he picks up wins over the likes of Roman Reigns.  

The first step in the process was placing more people between the Superstars and McMahon at the top. That those people are Heyman and Bischoff is a good thing. Next is gutting the PG era and making things interesting again while crafting stars. 

Presumably, Heyman and Bischoff aren't just window dressing, not with the current problems plaguing the product and McMahon off to juggle XFL on top of everything else. And even if it implodes, the shift away from PG and taking chances is already more interesting than most of what WWE has put out lately—at least it's giving off the appearance of trying.