Welcome to the latest Roundtable discussion here at iFight365.com where this week, we’re asking the question: How low does a wrestling company have to sink before viewers stop watching, as a matter of principle?

James Mustoe: To me, the answer to this is when a wrestling company takes advantage of recent or even ongoing real events, i.e. the exploitation of the first Gulf War with the Sergeant Slaughter character and angles and especially WWE’s appalling timing and use of the ‘Daivari is a suicidal martyr’ on the Smackdown following the 07/07 London bombings in 2005.

To me, wrestling is an escapist hobby that I follow to allow me to chill out from day-to-day life and this use of controversial current events in which real people have been hurt and have died is the lowest of the low as far as promotional tactics are concerned.

WWE’s use of Eddie Guerrero’s name in the almost immediate aftermath of his death as a promotional tool to build feuds did leave a bitter taste in my mouth. However, as far as I have been led to believe, Guerrero’s family and friends (many of whom were actually involved in said angles), gave their consent to allow his name to be used and I can only imagine that Vince McMahon would not have allowed the angles to proceed as they did without this permission. Therefore this sort of angle is not as bad as the other kind, where you can pretty much guarantee that whoever’s idea it was did not ask those affected whether or not it was okay to go ahead and that these very real tragedies were exploited for jingoistic cheap heat, and essentially, to make the wrestling company concerned a quick buck.

Phil Lowe: I’m not sure a wrestling company can ever sink low enough to a point where there is a mass tune-out of viewers.

Both WWE and TNA in recent years have had their fair share of tasteless angles and such like.

The two most recent in TNA that stick out for me are Kurt Angle’s line about Jeff Jarrett’s late-wife (which even when you consider that Jeff himself had to give the line the OK, did nothing for business) and the utterly disgraceful sound of a plane crashing when Sheik Abdul Bashir’s music plays.

Everything that happens on a wrestling TV show should, in the current climate, be about selling PPVs when it involves people at the top end of the card. How many people watched last week’s Impact and bought Bound for Glory because of Angle’s line? My guess is nobody.

In the WWE, we’ve seen Eddie Guerrero’s death used to get Randy Orton over, WWE go forward with a tribute to Chris Benoit seemingly somewhat aware of the events of that night and the whole Katie Vick BS. And that’s just scraping the surface.

Ultimately, however, when you’re a company as big as WWE, you can afford to push buttons and take heat for these untasteful decisions. When WWE did the whole terrorism angle on Smackdown just a couple of days after the July 7 bombings in London, they really deserved to have viewers tune out on them - especially here in the UK. But that never happened. As long as that continues to be the case, WWE will continue with their tasteless bullshit knowing that viewers will continue to tune in to see the top guys and business won’t take a severe dent.

As for TNA, whether their viewers tune out, at least for the short-term that depends on their creative product overall rather than just the odd tasteless remark.

Mark Bright: Looking at this from a moral perspective, I have to answer that I’m not sure there is a low and I don’t really know what that says about me as a person.

Randy Orton saying Eddie Guerrero is in hell to get heel heat was a scummy thing for the WWE to do, sure, but I didn’t stop watching because of it. Ditto Kurt Angle taking shots at the death of Jeff Jarrett’s wife. It’s a shitty thing to do but I stopped watching TNA because the product sucked, not for moral principled reasons.

WWE running a three-hour tribute to Chris Benoit when certain people high up in that company knew (or at least had been told) that he’d murdered his wife and son is just about the lowest of the low and I still watch. Because in amongst the sea of crap, you might get a great Edge promo, or an excellent Shawn Michaels match.

Martin Smith: I could probably write a book about this. My interest in wrestling over the last three years or so has dramatically declined mainly due to stuff in this question. 85% of the time, watching this sport has become embarrassing. In fact, let me rephrase that - 85% of the time, watching the WWE has become embarrassing. Michael and Dan will probably be the better guys to ask, but companies like ROH and PWG are fantastic wrestling promotions.

Stuff like Katie Vick, Mae Young giving birth to a hand and such, is stuff that I laugh at. I really couldn’t give a stuff. That doesn’t offend me. But, WWE’s whole thing on 7/7 was absolutely disgraceful. They claim to be so patriotic for the flag, but are happy to slap other countries in the face when it comes to terrorism. Personally, I was lucky enough to not be affected by what happened in London that evening, but some people weren’t so fortunate.

WWE pushing a terrorist like character on that Thursday’s Smackdown and having him do what he did was absolutely disgusting. By not removing it from the air, it was very poor etiquette for a company who “listens to its fans”. They claimed it was too late to edit the show. Absolute bullshit.

Anyone with a brain cell knows that is absolute bullshit. Working in the media, I have seen stuff edited during LIVE SHOWS, so how the hell could they not edit a small segment in about 12 hours before it was going on air? They could, but they knew it would get the media interested. Well done WWE, but if America had been blown up, would you still have ran it on air? Thought not.

That was the final straw. Throw in the stuff with Eddie Guerrero (which was beyond tasteless) and a number of other things, and my interest in WWE is very much dead.

WWE has well and truly used up its nine lives and they have lost a fan here.

Dan Short: A very interesting question. Very interesting, indeed. It is primarily because of the way Vince McMahon has been an instrumental factor in reshaping the way entertainment is viewed and accepted. Many decades ago, a lot of what he has done would been a series of complete and utter no-no’s. Katie Vick, Hot Lesbian Action, live sex acts, very early DX, beating up Santa Claus, screwed up suicides. That kind of television would have utlimately destroyed him, his company, his family, and perhaps even wrestling itself.

Nowadays, what he is doing is something that’s already being shown on television. Eposed brains being fingered, open autopsies, full on gay and lesbian sex, poking fun at religion from all sides. Very little is sacred any more on television, making it very difficult for any one in wrestling to perform some kind of act that would cause viewers to stop watching as a matter of principle. Frankly, a lot of the ideas I would think of are ones that have already happened.

So I think that it’s not so much about pushing the envelope or how low a wrestling company should sink in regards to wanting to be edgy or controversal. It’s pretty much showcasing a heavily weak product that has no opportunities to right itself. Think about how World Championship Wrestling died. In addition to the whole AOL buy-out, there was also a real lack of attention to creating something fresh in terms of their storylines and their talent. The same guys were being shown over and over again with the main action not being all that good.

While WWF was doing things that were new and unique, WCW was just recyclying the same materials againa nd again. Fans were sick of it. And when they tried to make the attempts to fix the problem, it would only be for the short-term. Not to mention it was far too late for anything to be done. So that tells me that it would take an approach in which the product was stale, dull, and extremely uninteresting with little room for improvement for viewers to stop watching. Not so much how far companies would go to make things edgy and controversal. Because doing so would spark enough interest to keep it alive. At least, that’s the way I see it.

Michael Campbell: There’s always been these phrases tossed around regarding wrestling. “It plays to the lowest common denominator,” it’s hardly “highbrow,” it’s “low-rent” etc. etc…and I think that’s utter nonsense. It’s a broad spectrum of entertainment that encompasses a number of entirely separate genres and thus should be given at least more than a cursory glance by it’s detractors.

Since the 1980s, at the top of this profession, we have had stars that have became household names, command millions of dollars towards their bank balances and in several cases, have become film stars. It’s not in the gutter anymore, as a whole.

However, when you witness incidents such as Jeff Jarrett’s recent exploitation of his wife’s death, for the purpose of making his company money, it’s difficult to stand up and proclaim yourself proud to be a wrestling fan.

There were a million other ways to draw heat for the Jeff Jarrett/Kurt Angle feud. There was also countless other means of attracting the same kind of heat - excitement over a “reality” based product, “edgy” topics - without going the path they did.

The really stupid thing about TNA’s incredulous scripting though is that it’s not “edgy” to your average viewer (the people flicking the channels who aren’t stopping on TNA for long enough - but need to be) because nobody who doesn’t follow wrestling knows who Jarrett is. And the people it offends are TNA’s existing fan-base, because they’re the only ones who know the reality of the situation (Jeff owns the company, can do whatever the hell he wants, and chose to reference his dead wife).

The flip-side is, that casual fans may think Jeff’s wife dying is part of the storyline and a work in itself!

TNA aren’t the only culprits of course, as a certain Vince McMahon has a long, long history of crossing boundaries that most sane people stay well away from.

I posed this question because I wanted to investigate the smart-fans, and the “dirt-sheet” writers views on this matter. I’m not going to switch off myself, in outrage or disgust, because I see it as my job to watch this stuff, if nothing else.

But I can’t speak for the more cultured fans out there, or for parent’s who realise subjects like rape, necrophilia and the exploitation of the deceased are not suitable for their kids. Look for a “Throwing in the Towel” column dealing with the fall-out of this subject soon!