One of the hot topics amongst wrestling fans lately has been WWE’s increasingly byzantine and irrational rules governing what words you can and can’t say on the air. There’s a reason WWE commentators all sound like barely literate robots with an unexplained phobia of saying the word “hospital.” Well, former WWE writer Kevin Eck, who’s been a good source of insider news in the past, provided a few more examples of terms that have been banned by Vince McMahon over the past few years.
Ryback’s nickname The Big Guy was banned for a while, although Ryback managed to get it back in use through persistence and/or Vince not actually caring that deeply what he did. The words “it will be” when describing an upcoming match was also stricken, because Teddy Long used it too often while making matches. Yeesh, thank goodness Teddy didn’t stick around any longer, otherwise “tag team” might have been banished forever in favor of “four man, cooperative ruthless aggression exhibitions.”
Also on the banned list were “non-title match,” “rematch,” “major announcement,” and “the title is held up,” which was of course replaced with the infamous nonsense phrase “the title is in a state of abeyance.” Oh, also, Roman Reigns wasn’t allowed to be Samoan, and his family connections were never to be mentioned. Because, yeah, letting slip this guy is related to The freakin’ Rock is going to hurt his credibility. Obviously, they went back on the “Roman Reigns isn’t Samoan” thing when they were desperate to get him over pre-WrestleMania, but they still kind of downplay it.
Y’know, as long as we’re being ridiculous, Vince McMahon should really lay down a challenge for the announcers and ban adjectives and all words that begin with the letter “e.” Honestly, it probably wouldn’t affect the quality of commentary all that much.
via The Eck Factor
