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I was among the first to make the observation, but others are now starting to catch on; the WWE Attitude era, typified by The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and others, is now over. With John “The Champ Is Here” Cena writing “JBL is poopy!” at a face taunt against a heel, it’s clear that WWE is subtlely changing their branding from the over-excesses of the Attitude era to a more family-friendly atmosphere is a welcome move for those of us who remember watching WWE as kids and being able to see an episode without an overdose of mature-rated content throughout the program.

Sure, back then WWE’s sponsors were mainly made of up acne treatment providers, but I think they’ve started to realize how many young kids watch their shows, especially given how many of their events are sponsored by videogame makers.

WWE Attitude was fun while it lasted; but I’m glad to see the company returning to a less risque product.

SmackDown’s Mr. Kennedy was injured recently and could be out of action anywhere from six weeks to six months, according to his own official Web site. The should injury involves a torn labrum.

With this sort of injury, six weeks of evaluation and physical therapy could correct the problem; if that doesn’t work, Kennedy will undergo surgery to repair the labrum and the recovery time from that is four to six months following the procedure.

While it may require some rather delicate surgical equipment rather than a bunch of air tools, the one thing Kennedy remains sure of is his desire to return to the ring as soon as he’s healed up.

I don’t think it’s hype when Ric Flair said that his parting of the ways with WWE was amicable, or that his goal was to stop relying on WWE to “prop him up,” but that he wanted to build his own name and reputation as a brand unto itself.

Flair is apparently not interested in a return to the wrestling ring upon his release, but is looking to explore other avenues of generating revenue and becoming a business man capable of “standing on his own” without the help of the McMahon family and WWE.

Hopefully, Flair will follow through with his plan and start making announcements about his next achievements soon; after the send-off Flair received at WrestleMania last spring, it would be a shame to see Flair sign with TNA or some other promotion in a vain attempt to extend his in-ring career.

Flair’s not some acne-ridden kid anymore; at 59, it’s time he pursued something new, like he was talking about, and he certainly has the skills to do well in other fields.

A few years ago, Flair played around with the idea of running for public office in North Carolina as a Republican; that would seem to be a potential course of action for Flair and would re-define his post-wrestling career.

Last year, MVP was diagnosed with a potentially-fatal heart condition that was unearthed in testing conducted via the WWE Wellness Program. MVP credits that test with saving his life and says the condition has been corrected and he is back to 100-percent health.

Although MVP is hoping to land a spot or two in upcoming WWE Films movies, he’s not looking to pull a Dwayne Johnson and leave WWE for films any time soon. “WWE is my passion, so leaving the WWE to become a full-time actor, that’s not something I’m looking at right now,” MVP said in a press release.

Sure is good to see MVP praising WWE for catching a heart condition rather than the program catching a WWE superstar perusing a list of best diet pills.

It was like looking at the first version of WWE SmackDown on PS2 instead of PS3; it’s been that long since Triple H has been on the SmackDown roster and on Friday when he made his appearance on the show, it became obvious immediately why WWE chose to move Triple H over to the Friday show.

Simply put: it’s a move to save SmackDown as an entity, as it moves from CW to MyNetworkTV at the end of the summer. SmackDown has become a morose show over the past couple years, becoming a breeding ground for two potential breakout stars in MVP and Mr. Kennedy, but all too often filled with second- and third-tier talent.

That’s where this Triple H move comes in; he immediately adds watchable talent to the SmackDown broadcast and helps lead the rebalancing of the brands. Seeing Triple H opposite MVP, even if it was just for an in-ring interview, was something no one’s seen yet; certainly that has to appeal to Triple H, now the mentor of the entire SmackDown roster, far more than staying on Raw another year and reworking the same old feuds again and again and again.

Now that he’s reached his 30th birthday, Jeff Hardy is planning to tone down his traditionally over-the-top in-ring style, which has in the past invovled acrobatic backflips and jumps from heights at which few other wrestlers would attempt. Perhaps he’s looked at how toning his style down will affect his life insurance rates.

Whatever the case, Hardy the high-flyer will slowly be giving way to Hardy the in-ring storyteller, according to Jeff’s recent interview with the Winnipeg Sun.

“I know what I can and can’t do,” Hardy said. “I go back to when I was watching wrestling as a kid. Macho Man, Hulk Hogan, and The Ultimate Warrior could have great matches by telling a story in the ring. They didn’t have to do backflips.”

Jeff Hardy is one of many top WWE talents who could be switching brands tonight on USA Network’s three-hour RAW broadcast, featuring the WWE Draft, which has become an annual event in which the company shakes up its respective rosters to freshen up storylines and feuds.

You don’t need an HDMI cable to see clearly that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has left the pro wrestling stage of his career in the past. With “The Rock” nickname now dropped completely from his on-screen billing, Johnson seems set on making a clean break from McMahon and company.

To his credit, Johnson is the best actor the WWE has ever produced. Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea was only passable at best, and never knew how to disappear into a role; he was always “The Hulkster.” Steve “Stone Cold Steve Austin” Williams had an easier time fitting into roles, but his in-ring injuries interrupted his momentum at launching a post-wrestling acting career. And current WWE superstar John Cena is promising, but untested in a total of one film to date.

By comparison, Dwayne Johnson fits into this summer’s Get Smart movie starring Steve Carrel like a glove; he’s no longer a wrestler showing he can do a little acting. He’s now an actor who at one time did a little wrestling.

R.I.P., The Rock. Long live Dwayne Johnson.

The ratings are in and McMahon’s Million Dollar Mania didn’t evidence any ratings improvement for the WWE. In fact, the numbers slipped to 3.0 after hovering around 3.1 to 3.2 in recent weeks. So, giving away oodles of money isn’t going to make people watch pro wrestling. That’s pretty much settled, right?

So, quick, before Vince McMahon starts hawking anti wrinkle cream on the air, let’s make this clear one more time: wrestling is what makes people want to watch wrestling. As a recent entry from me showed, with about 90 broadcast minutes to work with on Monday, Raw featured about 30 minutes of in-ring time and over 60 minutes of non-wrestling content.

That mix needs to switch polarities. At the very minimum, a two-hour-plus-overrun Raw broadcast should feature 45 minutes in the ring 45 minutes of other stuff; and wrestling was never as popular as when the mix was 60 minutes in-ring, 30 minutes out.

Actual wrestling matches are what boosts ratings, Vince. Learn it, live it, love it.

The last true “holy sh-t” moment I remember on SmackDown was years ago, when Big Show back body-dropped Brock Lesnar and the ring collapsed. Moments like that create buzz and buzz creates an interest in watching, which boosts ratings. As for RAW, it’s been a while, which is surprising since I generally prefer RAW to Smackdown.

With the foreclosure rate in the country today, here’s some good news: simply by watching WWE Raw, you might find a way out of your current crisis! The company seems serious about this Million Dollar Mania idea, so here’s the press release I received on it.

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McMahon to Give Fans $1 Million Cash on Monday Night RAW

That was not the only bombshell that McMahon dropped on the RAW audience. The Chairman also announced that a Draft will take place at the end of June, and that all performers from RAW, SmackDown and ECW will be eligible. Every Superstar, Diva and announcer can be drafted to any brand, and the unpredictable nature of the Draft is sure to keep the respective locker rooms abuzz in the coming weeks. “I think our fans deserve new Superstars, hot new Divas, new rivalries,” said McMahon in announcing the upcoming Draft.

The ever-declining ratings of Raw, ECW and Smackdown may, in fact, be part of an overall audience erosion due to the writers strike, but those excuses are wearing thin. The bottom line is that WWE hasn’t really changed or revolutionized its television product in the past decade, and the audience is getting bored with it. It’s time to stop looking like a bunch of used Harleys, and put some fresh product out there.

I don’t mean replacing the Top 4 dawgs in each promotion with a new Top 4 dawgs, either. I mean completely remaking the way pro wrestling storytelling takes place in each weekly broadcast. I think the latest ratings decline for the current format was sparked when Raw GM William Regal literally pulled the plug on a Raw main event, a few weeks back. That wasn’t compelling television; it was a cheat to loyal viewers, and became a “Jump the Shark” moment. Now, the trick will be to radically undo the damage.

Here are some tips and strategies for the WWE’s perusal. Hopefully someone’s actually listening.

1) Once the WWE Draft is over, seal up the brands tightly this time; the idea of Raw, ECW and Smackdown as separate brands only works if the talent stays on the shows they’re supposed to be on.

2) Go back to single-brand PPVs. By having stars from all three brands appear in every PPV, what you lose is the ability to build up your mid-card guys with meaningful resolutions to fueds. PPVs need to stop being the domain of just the top four guys in each brand; only SummerSlam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania should be multi-brand PPVs, so that it’s meaningful when it happens. The rest of the time, the smaller-scale PPVs should be opportunities to build up the profiles of each brand - including and especially the midcard guys.

3) Make title pursuits central again. Your midcarders should all be pursuing (depending on brand) the US or Intercontinental title, with the title holder using their reign as a launching pad to reach the next level; or they should be involved in a reinvigorated tag team division. Your headliners should all be pursuing that brand’s respective world title, with a lot more guys than just the top four dawgs involved in that pursuit.

4) Give the midcarders meaningful storylines and motivations that help each TV match mean something. Develop storylines that take a long time to develop, and start planning longer story arcs. While injuries and suspensions may make revisions necessary, each broadcast should leave the viewer feeling confident that ever match advanced both wrestlers involved in a specific, planned direction.

5) Cut down the overlong in-ring chatter and backstage skits; re-embrace the importance of sharp interviews and in-ring storytelling over juvenile humor and stupid skits. The Mick Foley-Rock stuff was golden, but it was also about eight years ago. Time to move on.

6) Reduce the on-screen roles of the GM and the McMahon Family. Use this as a symbol that the way WWE broadcasts tell a story has actually changed.

7) Treat traditions, like King of the Ring, with a whole lot more respect than the most recent edition did. Book these things right, or don’t book ‘em at all.

Cut back on the theatrics and instead of modern “heels” and “faces,” all of whom are on incredible ego trips anyway, try letting the crowd decide who to cheer and who to boo based on who wrestles clean and who breaks the rules. Sounds like a return to a simpler era? It doesn’t have to be in execution, but it’s clear the “male soap opera” thing has run its course.

9) Try something fresh and unexpected, like posting a wrestler’s won-loss record for the month, the year, and career. Yes, we know results are booked and scripted, but something like this would appeal to sports stats geeks, and would reinject a sense that wins and losses mean something.

10) End the “pass the main title between a handful of guys” tradition and open the gates wider to all the established guys. Having Triple H and Randy Orton and John Cena at the top of the card all the time wears out the welcome of those fueds. If you book Jeff Hardy to be on a hot winning streak, it should earn him a title shot at the next PPV.

11) Stop giving away so many PPV-level matches on broadcast TV. The Monday Night Wars are over, and you can save matching up your top contenders for PPVs. Make people want to see Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy because it’s something they won’t see, in any variation, until the next Raw PPV.

12) Building on point 9, establish gimmicks like a Sizzling 7 list for which superstars are winning and closing in on title shots, for the main titles, the second-tier titles, the tag titles and so on. Having people move up and down that list could be made into a regular segment each week, giving the Raw, ECW and Smackdown broadcasts more of an ESPN SportsZone type feel.

These are just some basic ideas, but I feel more than a few of them would be fresh, new ideas that could reinvigorate WWE broadcasts, given a decent chance. The branding catchphrase could be along the lines of, “WWE. Putting the sports back in sports entertainment.”

What does WWE have to lose?

Just saw Judgment Day and the Shawn Michaels-Chris Jericho match had to be the “highlight reel” match of the night for me, personally. I recognized what they were trying to replicate right away, which is one of those action-filled, tons of near-falls type of matches like the classic Flair-Steamboat match, or the equally-classic WrestleMania 3 Savage-Steamboat match of years gone by.

The great thing is they told a great storyline in the ring through wrestling and ring psychology, rather than a series of high spots, so classic fans like myself can appreciate it as a tribute to the way wrestlnig was done in the pre-WrestleMania era. The old AWA standby champ, Nick Bockwinkle, was one of the best at this style of match, and Michaels was around in the latter days of the AWA, so he knew Bockwinkle, at least in passing. Jericho, a student of the game, wasn’t wrestling yet back then, but as I recall, when he was the Undisputed WWE champ, his style of “heel champ” had a distinct Nick Bockwinkle tribute feel to it.

So if you missed the PPV, bubba, stretch out on your foam mattress and buy the replay, because that was one match worth the price of viewing, for sure. The two title matches (Orton v. Triple H and Edge v. Taker) were also top-notch efforts by the top talents from both brands.

I hate to say it, but I’m already bored with the whole King Regal bit. While it made for a nice shocking moment the first time Regal ended Raw early, mid-match, the whole ongoing bit of turning out the ring lights and stopping good promos and good matches (while the bad ones seem to still go on uninterrupted) has quickly worn thin.

Regal’s power trip is about as intriguing as a natural acne treatment video to a senior citizen, and it’s ruining important moments in the Raw broadcast. The most blatent example of this from last night’s Raw was when Regal shut down the first promo Jeff Hardy has cut since returning from a two-month suspension related to the WWE’s Wellness Policy.

That was an important moment in re-establishing Hardy’s character, so having it cut off was more than just an angle; it cheated the crowd. Wherever this is headed with Regal, it needs to be over soon, since this is not creating the good type of “nasty villain” heat, but is actually resulting in viewer apathy, since it seems like any time a promo or match gets interesting, they pull the “Regal cuts the power” angle.

Drop it, fast, Vince!