WWE Monday Night Raw Returns To TV-14 Rating
It would appear the PG era in WWE is officially over, as Monday Night Raw will return to a TV-14 rating for the first time in almost fifteen years.
There has been plenty which has been outright banned on WWE due to the TV-PG rating, including blood, scenes of a sexual nature, and profanity. This went alongside the shift from being seen as a wrestling company to a sports entertainment brand.
Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast is now reporting that this is coming to an end, and Monday Night Raw will have a TV-14 rating starting from the 18th July 2022 episode, bucking a trend which was initiated on 22nd July 2008.
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No details have been confirmed as what WWE will start introducing to Monday Night Raw with the new rating, however it will certainly interest a number of fans to tune in and see what the changes are between the 11th July 2022 edition of the red brand and the new era.
This change in stance from WWE could also coincide with a return to the writing team of Paul Heyman, with it being reported by PWTorch’s Wade Keller that the former ECW owner is set to be brought back in to help on that side of things. The change in rating would give some more scope, even if it’s unlikely things would get Extreme too quickly.
There had previously been reports from WrestleVotes that NXT 2.0 could have its rating pulled back, helping to differentiate it from the rest of the roster. It was mentioned at the time that USA Network executives were unopposed to the idea.
The instances of profanity have been few and far between on WWE programming due to the TV-PG rating, although there have been occasions when the rules have been bent, such as allowing Corey Graves to exclaim “holy sh*t” when Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley went crashing through the screens in the summer of 2019.
THURSDAY PM UPDATE
Andrew Zarian of Mat Men/Wrestling Observer updated his report noting that while WWE does plan to go to a TV-14 product soon for Raw, it might be as soon as the July 18 edition of Raw.
This is a wild situation. There’s a lot happening behind the scenes
WWE Raw won’t be going to TV-14 on July 18th but still in consideration for a later date.
Will go live tomorrow morning to break this down. https://t.co/F29mP8xCwy
— Andrew Zarian (@AndrewZarian) July 14, 2022
We will have further updates in the days ahead as it relates to this story.