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Update On A Reason Why WWE Wants TV-14 Programming

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There’s a new report explaining yet another reason why WWE is considering moving from a TV-PG rating to TV-14 in the future.

It was reported on July 14th that there were discussions between USA Network and WWE about making Raw a TV-14 television show like it was prior to the PG change in 2008.

The rumored change to TV-14 led to fans getting excited about it, but there’s been no announcement of the change. At the time of the report, Vince McMahon was still the WWE Chairman and CEO. Now that he’s been replaced by daughter Stephanie McMahon in those roles, there hasn’t been a change.

While the July 14th report did state that WWE-USA Network were thinking, there was some backtracking with the story that the internal memo was sent out prematurely.

Bryan Alvarez discussed the matter on Wrestling Observer Radio while claiming that one of the reasons why WWE wants to go TV-14 is because then they can stop editing certain fan chants during the show.

There were incidents during NXT Heatwave on August 16 where fans chanted “holy s**t” and “you fu**ed up” during the show, so WWE had to mute it. Alvarez commented on it:

“Honestly one of the reasons that they wanted to go TV-14 was because they’re sick of having to edit out these chants.”

Following the reports of WWE dropping the PG rating for TV-14, Hall of Famer The Undertaker said that it was a positive move because it would “take the handcuffs off” many superstars in the company.

Another Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff, who is the former WCW President, spoke about how WWE can make their non-wrestling segments more interesting if it’s a TV-14 product.

“You bore the sh*t out of me with your backstage promos and your stand-up mic segments. There’s just nothing happening in those segments. There’s no narrative most of the time in those segments that do anything other than disengage me. That’s true in WWE, it’s true in AEW. Some of the people that are doing stand-up promos shouldn’t be doing them. I would use that. I’d make my non-wrestling segments — I’d find ways to make them more interesting.”

H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription of the Alvarez quote.