wwe to remove all attitude era clips

WWE scrubbing McMahon-era clips
By: Kevin Robillard
September 14, 2012 11:00 AM EDT

World Wrestling Entertainment announced late Thursday it was scrubbing some “dated and edgier” footage from its website, a day after its co-founder’s political opponent used clips in an attack ad.

“Some of this footage has been misused in political environments without any context or explanation as to when it was produced,” WWE’s Brian Flinn told The CT Mirror. “This damages the corporate reputation of our company.”

Flinn said the footage’s removal wasn’t related to an ad released Wednesday by Rep. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat running for Senate against WWE co-founder Linda McMahon, a Republican. The ad briefly uses WWE footage while attacking McMahon for allegedly offshoring profits to avoid taxes and failing to provide health coverage for the company’s performers.

WWE said the footage’s removal was part of a rebranding effort. While the WWE had a PG-14 rating for much of the late 1990s and early 2000s — generally called the company’s “Attitude Era,” when Linda was running the company with her husband, Vince McMahon — its current content is rated PG or G, the company said.

“For years WWE has produced programming that is rated PG in prime time, and most recently rated G on Saturday mornings,” Flinn told the Mirror. “To better reflect our current family-friendly brand of entertainment, WWE is removing some dated and edgier footage from digital platforms.”

Since McMahon’s first run for the Senate in 2010, when she lost to Democrat Richard Blumenthal, opponents have used WWE footage to criticize the Republican for promoting violence and sexism. The Mirror reports one such clip, in which Vince McMahon orders a female wrestler to strip, get down on all fours and bark like a dog, has been wiped from YouTube.

“This is what Linda McMahon doesn’t want Connecticut voters to see: the sum total of her business experience comes from selling explicit sex and violence to children while laying off 10 percent of her workforce and taking multimillion dollar paydays funded by Connecticut taxpayers,” Murphy spokesman Ben Marter said in a statement. “But spending millions of dollars on a political image make-over isn’t going to fool Connecticut families, and Linda McMahon can’t hide from her miserable record of promoting the abusive, demeaning, and degrading treatment of women. The question is: is the WWE now coordinating with McMahon to cover up her embarrassing past?”

The McMahon campaign dismissed the idea of colluding with the company, of which Vince is now CEO.

“That’s absolutely false,” McMahon spokesman Todd Abrajano said in an interview. “The campaign doesn’t coordinate with the company.”

Abrajano declined to comment about the rest of the statement’s attacks. But earlier this week, McMahon’s campaign told The Associated Press the company expanded its workforce by 30 percent after a restructuring following the layoffs. The “paydays funded by Connecticut taxpayers” are an apparent reference to tax credits WWE said helped create new jobs.

The WWE hasn’t responded to an e-mail and a phone call seeking comment.

After her expensive loss to Blumenthal in 2010 — she spent $50 million on her campaign — McMahon has retooled her image in 2012, focusing less on her business experience than her life story, often mentioning a bankruptcy she went through early in life. A late August Quinnipiac University poll found McMahon leading Murphy, 49 percent to 46 percent, in the race to replace retiring independent Sen. Joe Lieberman

World Wresting Entertainment, a Connecticut-based company formerly led by Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon, announced plans this week to remove "dated and edgier footage from digital platforms."

Clips from ? WWE segments have served as piercing ammunition for political attack ads against McMahon in the past. During her failed Senate run in 2010, her opponents took particular advantage of a show that featured a scantily clad woman being called a "? ," before being told to bark like a dog and take her clothes off. In another, McMahon's own daughter entered the ring to chants of "? ." At the time, McMahon downplayed these controversial episodes as symptoms of the show being like a "soap opera" and maintained that the company, which she left in 2009, had toned down its content in recent years.

In a statement from the WWE, Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communication Brian Flinn admitted that politics played a part in their decision, but he claimed the move is ultimately about preserving the "current family-friendly brand of entertainment."

"Some of this footage has been misused in political environments without any context or explanation as to when it was produced," he said. "This damages the corporate reputation of our company. WWE is well within its rights to protect its intellectual property for fair use."

But McMahon's opponent, Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), appears to believe the WWE is trying to do more than just defend its brand. His campaign recently suggested that there may have been inappropriate coordination between the company and McMahon in order to shield her from what it sees as valid criticism.

"This is what Linda McMahon doesn’t want Connecticut voters to see: the sum total of her business experience comes from selling explicit sex and violence to children while laying off 10 percent of her workforce and taking multimillion dollar paydays funded by Connecticut taxpayers," Murphy campaign spokesman Ben Marter said, according to the Associated Press. "But spending millions of dollars on a political image make-over isn’t going to fool Connecticut families, and Linda McMahon can’t hide from her miserable record of promoting the abusive, demeaning, and degrading treatment of women."

The scrubbing of archival WWE footage won't prevent political attacks based on McMahon's professional wrestling past, however. Just this week, Murphy released an ad targeting McMahon for laying off workers during her tenure as WWE CEO and alleging that she failed to offer them satisfactory health care. Another angle that McMahon's political adversaries have previously hammered her on is the WWE's ugly history of steroid use, which casts a darker shadow over the industry than the programming itself.