Stevie Richards thinks WWE’s censorship problem could end up doing more than just annoying fans. He believes WWE is actively making its own product less enjoyable and handing AEW an opportunity in the process.
Speaking on The Stevie Richards Show, Richards reacted to the heavily censored parking-lot attack involving The Usos, Royce Keys and OTM from the August 31 episode of RAW. Netflix covered much of the blood with large pixelated blocks, and Richards couldn’t get past how distracting the finished product looked.
“I was watching it, James, and I was thinking to myself, my goodness, do I have a binocular migraine? Because you just see the prisms. I was like, what am I looking at?”
His bigger issue wasn’t simply that the editing looked bad. Richards questioned why viewers are being protected from material WWE deliberately produced in the first place, especially when they’re paying for access to the show.
“It’s mindboggling, the protect you from yourself and your own viewing habits type thing. You know what? If you know what’s good for us, we know what’s good for us and we’ll take our subscription monies elsewhere.”
Richards had the same problem with WWE censoring profanity. Jacob Fatu’s outburst was bleeped on the Netflix broadcast, something Richards found really strange considering the language already available elsewhere on the platform.
“You’re bleeping Jacob Fatu out on Netflix when they have interviews of people saying the f-word and the s-word and all this. Like, you’re actually telling people we’re not giving you the full experience for what you’re paying for.”
That left Richards wondering what WWE is actually accomplishing with all of these changes. Between blood being pixelated, profanity disappearing and other portions of the product being altered, he questioned whether the company is giving people reasons to stop watching rather than making the show more accessible.
“They are actively—are you just trying to get people to unsubscribe and not enjoy your show?”
Richards became even more frustrated when the discussion reached crowd chants. After hearing that chants such as “holy s***” had been replaced with “this is awesome,” he argued WWE was no longer just censoring its wrestlers. It was changing how paying fans themselves reacted to the show.
“You want to get people to not want to even come out to the show and now you’re censoring the fans and what they think.”
That’s where AEW entered the conversation. Richards believes all of this creates an opening for WWE’s competition. AEW has been far more willing to show blood and other violent material, and he pointed to Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega as examples of wrestlers appearing in bloody matches without the same kind of presentation being hidden from viewers.
“AEW has an incredible opportunity. We’re going to talk about Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega and what they did and they bled plenty. You know, they have plenty of blood from Will. They have an opportunity with this. WWE is definitely, definitely shooting themselves in the foot.”
His comments come after WWE’s own post-production employees were frustrated with Netflix’s restrictions following the August 31 RAW. The bloody Usos attack was one of the biggest examples, with WWE later making the uncensored footage available online after Netflix viewers received the pixelated version.
Richards sees an even bigger problem developing if that continues. WWE can keep producing violent angles, but if the finished broadcast keeps hiding the very things designed to make those angles feel violent, AEW suddenly has an easy way to offer viewers something WWE won’t.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
Do you agree that WWE’s censorship is giving AEW an opportunity, or do you think the edits are being blown out of proportion? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.
