>>13531808WWE always built their product on pandering to kids and families and made ridiculous amounts of dosh on the associating merchandising.
The ONLY reason they ever adopted a more edgy presentation was because WCW stole it so successfully from ECW, and WWE had to compete. As soon as WCW and ECW were dead and bought there was no reason for WWE to continue marketing their product that way.
Indies haven't really been able to recapture that magic either because they lack either the financial backing or they don't have the perfect mix of elements and cultural appeal that ECW (and later WCW and WWE) were able to capitalize on.
It's also just not the right cultural climate right now. We are living in a conservative era of censorship and moralizing (even if everyone wants to pretend it's actually progressive), so extreme rebelliousness and edgy stuff is currently "out" in the cultural zeitgeist.
Give it like 10-20 years and edgy rebelliousness will come back in to fashion.
