WWE has undergone significant transformations over the years, adapting to changing audience preferences and television guidelines. These changes have impacted the way superstars are ranked and perceived, influencing character development, storylines, and the overall wrestling product.
WWE instituted a number of changes as they began marketing to a younger audience, such as heavily scripting on-screen promos and toning down excessive violence, profanity and sexual content. The earlier parts of the era were defined by superhero-esque fan-favorites and one-dimensional villains.
John Cena and The Rock on the April 4, 2011 episode of Raw.
The Evolution of WWE Eras
Upon the launch of the TV Parental Guidelines in 1997, WWF (WWE was known as the World Wrestling Federation until May 2002) programming was rated TV-PG. Beginning with the January 18, 1999 episode, Raw shifted to a TV-14 rating amidst direct competition with World Championship Wrestling's (WCW) flagship show Nitro during the Monday Night War. It remained with that rating until early-June 2008.
The Complete History Of WWE
WWE promoter Vince McMahon states that the Attitude Era of the late 1990s and early 2000s was the result of competition from WCW and forced the company to "go for the jugular". As WWE reverted to a more family-friendly style, previous staples in their programming were altered or dropped.
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The PG Era: A Shift in Content
Bleacher Report states that "Perhaps the most distinguishable characteristic of WWE's PG Era was its reliance on superhero-esque babyfaces." While John Cena was the biggest star in the company at that time, other major stars during that period included established holdovers (or returning performers) from prior WWE eras, including Chris Jericho, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Batista, Edge, Christian, and Jeff Hardy.
During the PG Era, Jeff Hardy won the WWE Championship for the first time at Armageddon 2008. His subsequent 2009 feud with CM Punk was described as "shockingly real" given the PG Era, as Punk referenced Hardy's real-life drug addiction. Women were not an integral part of the show and were treated as a sideshow during the early parts of the era, similar to how they were presented in the 1970s and '80s.
Criticism and Defense of the PG Era
The move to TV-PG programming has been singled out as one of WWE's most controversial decisions amongst wrestling fans. The PG Era has also received much criticism from fans due to its watered-down violence and family-friendly program and characters. The transition to TV-PG caused some fans to support WWE's competitors, with Pro Wrestling Torch writer James Caldwell commenting that WWE's programming resembled children's shows such as Barney & Friends or Blue's Clues when compared to their nearest competitor's at the time, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), which was promoting more adult-oriented content.
Former header writer Brian Gewirtz has stated that WWE's writers joked about "adding in muppet characters" because they felt the scripts were "ridiculous", while Batista attributed his 2010 departure to the PG Era, stating that WWE was "in a bad moment" during that time. Bryan Alvarez has been highly critical of WWE storylines throughout the period, but does not blame the TV-PG rating.
Although noting that the move was unpopular with some fans, Chris Mueller of the Bleacher Report opined that it was the right thing to do given changing times, writing: "The world is more politically correct, parents are more cautious about what their kids are watching, and advertisers are less willing to back controversial brands." Mueller praised the PG Era as a wise business decision because it made the promotion more appealing to corporate sponsors.
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Shortly after the transition, Miami Herald writer Jim Varsallone said that the changes in programming were too subtle for casual fans to notice and that he did not get complaints from fans. Gewirtz criticized the era as "jarring" due to there being not being a transition from the edgier Ruthless Aggression era, but stated that WWE "[gained] respectability again with the advertisers and Hollywood in general.
Edge compared the PG Era favorably to the Attitude Era, stating that his matches were given more airtime during the PG Era as the latter was more "about the hijinks backstage" than in-ring action. The Miz said that the limitations of the PG Era made them more creative, while Triple H also defended it by emphasizing the importance of storylines over "special effects". Meanwhile, Kurt Angle praised the era as being "good for wrestling" due to non-television reasons such as the health of the wrestlers.
Although John Cena sympathized with those who miss the adult-oriented content, citing his personal "adult sense of humor", he defended the PG era, calling it "more digestible": "[operating under] a PG platform, ... has totally globally expanded the WWE and created more fans ... The transition to TV-PG became a subject of controversy during Linda McMahon's 2010 Senate campaign.
On July 14, 2022, Andrew Zarian reported that Raw would begin airing with a TV-14 rating on the following episode. Zarian later reported that the deal had not been finalized.
WWE Superstar Ranking Factors
A member of the WWE 2K24 production team has elaborated on the process used to decide how a character receives their overall rating. Much like other video games and the WWE roster, not all characters are equal. Hardcore fans of a particular video game franchise know that there are certain teams, characters or abilities that will give them an advantage over the competition and the best chance of winning.
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As each annual 2K title nears its release, the developers gradually let fans know what overall rating their favourite Superstar has been given out of 100. While some are more obvious, such as Roman Reigns being the highest rated in 2K24 with a score of 97, others have generated more backlash, such as Logan Paul’s 90 rating being equal to Gunther and Eddie Guerrero.
Speaking with Squared Circle Pit, producer Bryan Williams explained that not everyone can have an extremely high rating: “For us on the design side, we’re really big on character differentiation and making sure that when you select a character that they are of their appropriate hierarchy on the card. Not everybody can be a Roman Reigns. You have people that are at the tippety top of the card and then you have people that are not, but there’s no slight on anybody.”
In regards to the specific process of determining ratings for wrestlers in the 2024 version of the game, Williams stated that the scores are determined based on the respective Superstar’s achievements in the past 12 months: “We kind of take all that into account to see, did they hold championships? Were they winning more than they were losing? Are they consistently pushed?”
Proposed Ranking System
From looking at a lot of the threads, it seems as though plenty of people are desperate to see some new ideas in the WWE. How about a rankings system, similar to that in professional boxing, where all superstars are ranked from top to bottom. The WWE Champ/WHC are ranked at the top of their respective 'rosters' if the brand split continues and other wrestlers are ranked accordingly.
Every match which happens on either show has ranking points available for it, the more you win, the higher up the ranking you move.
Benefits of such a system:
- It would give superstars not involved in title pictures something to do.
- It would bring a bit of clarity to the No.1 Contendership malarkey, rather than just having arbitrary people picked to wrestle a match at the first raw of the month to determine who will be No.1 Contender.
- Good possibilities for Creative: heel GM's/Consultants can place higher ranking points for matches involving their favoured superstars. Superstars can be sneaky and only really put the effort in in matches where ranking points are at stake (again, would apply to heels, deliberate countouts in non-ranking points matches).
WWE Roster Hierarchy
The WWE roster for Raw and SmackDown wrestlers, despite how it may not seem like it at times, is in fact a hierarchy of importance. The higher up on the ladder you are, the more valuable you are to the company, the better treated you are, the more credible your character is and so forth, with the bottom rungs being the wrestlers who lose the most often and never quite seem to be worth all that much.
NOTE: The following is my best guess as to how WWE management views each particular talent, NOT how I would rank them myself. This list also does not include the women's division, NXT, or other separate entities with a more malleable roster, as their hierarchies are not as well established and defined in comparison.
SPECIALTY: These are the guys that take precedence over everyone else, for the most part. They're perpetually at the main event level even if they don't show up that often.
MAIN EVENT:
- High-Tier are always in the main event and never lower than the top of the card, relatively speaking, and seem to only get pushed aside if it comes to them against a specialty act.
- Mid-Tier go back and forth.
- Low-Tier are world champs that don't frequently main event but can fill in a main event spot at any time, or a new world champ that is fresh to the scene and thus, hasn't built up enough history to be moved up.
UPPER MIDCARD: These guys are in limbo between the main event and midcard scene.