Vince McMahon Unleashed His Fury on Ric Flair for Snubbing His Orders by Prioritizing WWE Legend’s Safety: “I’m Sorry but I’m Not Gonna Hit a Guy…”

Back in the day, WWE used to be a TV-14 product. Extreme violence and graphic imagery were common themes in WWE’s non-PG era. But in mid-2008, the Stamford-based company decided to adopt a family-friendly TV approach and turned to TV-PG.

Now the WWE Universe rarely gets to see a chair shot to the head that makes a wrestler bleed. But in the yesteryears, it used to happen a lot. In fact, on one occasion, The Boss, Vince McMahon, yelled at Ric Flair for not paying heed to his order to hit his opponent hard enough with a chair.

Ric Flair did not want Steve Austin to get severely hurt

On this week’s episode of To Be The Man podcast, the two-time Hall of Famer, The Nature Boy, revealed an incident involving McMahon asking him to hit “Stone Cold” Steve Austin with a chair.

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Slick Ric said that one night in Connecticut, McMahon “screamed” at him “for not hitting Steve Austin hard enough in the head.” At the time, The Texas Rattlesnake had a neck injury. So Flair defied Mr. McMahon’s orders and chose not to hit Austin hard with a chair. 

“And he screamed at me. I said, well I’m sorry, but I’m not gonna hit a guy. I know that’s got a potential injury as hard as I can, with the chair. I’m sorry,” said Naitch. 

The WWE legend also stated that in the old WWE era, wrestlers used to “take a lot for granted” and they used to “kill each other with the chairs.” But now, in the WWE PG era, there are “no more headshots.”

Why did WWE switch to TV-PG?

Fans seemingly used to enjoy the WWE with more violence and raunchy context. But the company had to change that because of two major factors: the wrestlers and the audience.

Firstly, in the WWE TV-14 era, there used to be more violence, which equals more stars getting injured. To protect its talent from causing harm to themselves, WWE turned PG. This safety-first approach to wrestling has minimized the risk of pro wrestling athletes getting severely injured.

Secondly, WWE noted that most of its audience is young. So it made sense to change its programming to suit a younger audience as well. The company then started to make content that was appropriate for all to draw in audiences of all ages.

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Tell us which WWE era you liked more. The TV-14 or TV-PG?