The Attitude Era turned WWE into a global phenomenon and helped the company win the war against WCW. Since then, the company has gone through the Ruthless Aggression Era and is now PG.
John Cena has become the face of that and often draws the ire of fans as a result. However, he's still very much the face of WWE (despite his part-time schedule) and has made it clear in a new interview that he doesn't believe The Attitude Era could work in today's landscape and makes it clear that while being PG can be a detriment at times, it's actually what's best for the product nowadays.
"Coming in in 2002 you’re still riding the coattails of the Attitude era. It’s 18-35-year-old males, it’s very visceral, the entertainment is very extreme. Fast forward to 2004, 2005, 2006, more families are showing up. and I don’t feel comfortable saying the things I was saying on the microphone because I got to look at a little kid and at that point, I’m supposed to be the good guy? That’s not how a good guy is so I use the opportunity of the platform of The Marine – because the movie did reach a bunch of people – to genuinely, subtly, begin to change my character into more of a P.G. environment because those are the tools I’m dealt. I can do a butt chug scene if you put an ‘R’ on the movie but when you put a TV-PG on the show and you’re out the re doing stuff that makes your audience feel uncomfortable, your career longevity is going to be nothing.
"So a lot of these guys today also want to do all the things we’re not supposed to do. That’s not being a good mechanic. You take the tools that you have to fix the problems in front and everybody’s like, hey, would you bring back the rap guy? It would bomb right now. It would bomb. One, because all those punch lines are inappropriate. Especially, for now, they’re not P.G. so if I were to still come out in the outfit, I did, I managed to sneak one in against the Rock. Man, was it difficult to write those lines and I even had to say before I cut the promo, okay, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire so I’m sorry that I have to do this but it’s got to be done. I had to preface it with like earmuffs, kids, because it’s about to get pretty raw and even still meandering through all that I had a double entendre my way through something that I could possibly only do for one night, or it would not work right now. Neither would the attitude era."
It's hard to argue with what Cena is saying here, especially as much of the content from The Attitude Era is now horribly outdated and fans have glorified what was actually a very hit and miss era of wrestling in the years which have followed. It certainly wouldn't hurt WWE to be a little rougher around the edges in places but for the most part, PG is working for the company for now.
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