In case anyone missed the point of Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green’s recent blog post headlined “McMahon is WWE and WWE is McMahon,” The Washington Times has combed World Wrestling Entertainment’s Securities and Exchange Commission filing to find that WWE was a subcontractor in the production of some of Linda McMahon’s TV campaign commercials. See today’s story, “Senate hopeful has WWE in her corner,” http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/10/senate-hopeful-still-has-wwe-in-her-corner/print/.
At this point we need an investigation of possible deeper corporate support by WWE of the campaign of its co-founder and former chief executive. Last year’s change of Raw and SmackDown from TV-14, the erstwhile parental guidance rating, to TV-PG is looking pretty dubious.
I myself don’t care about the national nanny ratings system – I don’t even have cable. But the voters of Connecticut need to know everything they can about the extreme synergy of the brands “WWE” and “Linda McMahon, French teacher manqué.” They also need to understand that the concept of truth in advertising is foreign to both.
A couple of weeks ago this blog created a stir by reporting that the first show of WWE’s new No. 3 brand, NXT, on the cable Syfy channel, was listed TV-14. For once, the company didn’t attack my journalism, but acknowledged that there had been a one-time “miscommunication” by Syfy in providing information to program guides. Coincidentally, a WWE performer for the distinguished act Cryme Tyme told a fan website the very next day, “We’re not PG.” For my takeout on this episode, see “WWE, TV-PG, and TV-14,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/wwe-tv-pg-and-tv-14/.
Two nights ago, during his real-time coverage of USA cable’s Raw for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter website, Bryan Alvarez wrote:
So did you read the thing in the daily update about the host of Good Day Oregon being told that he couldn’t drop an elbow on a doll during a segment with MVP because kids may try it at home and get hurt, or some such nonsense? Well, Criss Angel just did a magic trick where he had Santino put a KNIFE, a fucking KNIFE under one of four cups, and then said he was going to use his magic to crush the three empty ones and avoid being stabbed. Not making this up. He didn’t get stabbed, but the fact that this aired on the supposed PG kid-friendly Raw was astonishing.
Irv Muchnick
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