In July, it was reported that WWE was planning on changing the rating for Monday Night Raw from PG to TV-14.
After 14 years of the PG rating, fans were excited about the change, but reports were premature, later clarifying that it was an idea that had been floated around.
More recently, it has been reported that WWE will not be changing Raw to a TV-14 show.
Straight From the Top
The decision to change Raw from PG to TV-14 reportedly came from the USA Network, but the decision to end the idea came from within WWE.
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer explained why the company pulled back from its plans. (via Wrestling News.)
“That’s the new regime… Vince maybe was considering it. Stephanie’s thing is let’s not make Mattel unhappy and we don’t need it [the TV-14 rating.] You know what I mean? And they don’t.”
Meltzer added that WWE’s rationale is that they’ve been able to succeed in improving their shows and viewership in recent weeks without having to go to the same rating as AEW.
“AEW is not going up [in the ratings, compared to Raw/SmackDown] and we [as in WWE’s rationale] are going up. So why do we need to fight them to do what they did that stopped working? If you look at the trajectory of everything, it’s kind of like, yeah that’s probably a decision that we shouldn’t make right now.”
Prior to the U-turn, it was reported that much of WWE would not change, other than profanity was expected to be allowed on the TV-14 Raw.