I originally posted this on the forums, but I kind of liked it, so I thought I would re-present it in blog form for the enjoyment of all of ya'll:

I don't think there's anything wrong with moving in a more family friendly direction, per se.  That brings more people into the fold.  My parents used to watch wrestling with me when I was a little kid, but then the Attitude Era arrived, and I was forbidden to watch (I did anyway of course).  A more family friendly program makes sense from a business standpoint since Mom, Dad, little Billy, little Suzie, and Grandma can all watch, and may even all want to attend shows.  Kids are key to the wrestling business, bottom line.

The biggest problem with moving away from Attitude/Aggression era stories is that it may bring out the huge flaws in certain talent (cough, John Cena, cough cough) that have been traditionally filled with vulgarity or other adult themes.

Really though, I don't think that nothing significant has been taken away from WWE (Playboy stuff and general skankiness not withstanding).  I do think there will be a slight drop-off in people who only watched WWE for violence or sexual things (you know who you are).  If people want more adult oriented wrestling, many independent promotions (ROH included) have lots of violence and swearing.  For those really into watching sexy women wrestle, there's Carmen Electra's Naked Women Wrestling League.

Many of us talk about the time in the 80s and early 90s as a Golden Age of wrestling, and there was no swearing or other vulgarity.  It was compelling characters engaged in competitive, intriguing matches.  I think this is starting to come around again, even if us old jaded wrestling fans don't like certain elements of it as much as we did when we were kids (cough, John Cena, cough, cough).  But maybe, just maybe, in twenty years there will be wrestling nerds on the internet talking about this great era of wrestling as HHH is getting inducted into the Hall of Fame before Wrestlemania XLV.