Lighter And Softer / Professional Wrestling

• Between the eighties and the early aughts, WWF's wrestling evolved from male niche entertainment, to a teen marketing gimmick (what seemed adult at the time was actually even more juvenile) to wholesome "family" television, as even promoters who already had, say, a large female audience, tried to imitate it.
• Prior to coming to the WWF, The Sheepherders were one of the most hardcore tag teams in pro wrestling. Upon their arrival, Butch Miller and Luke Williams changed their name to The Bushwhackers, became faces, and played their brawling style more for laughs than for heat.
• Wrestling International New Generation was less serious than Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, with a lower volume of garbage matches, more outlandish gimmicks like the Crypt Keeper and more elaborate angles such as the conflict with Víctor Quiñones. IWA Japan was less so, increasing the match variety and garbage density but eventually took on a more comical approach as they still couldn't maintain the levels of violence FMW could.
• The entirety of pro wrestling in the state of Kentucky became this after they successfully ran out IWA Mid-South after deciding they had seen enough garbage wrestling and made many reforms to their athletic commission, especially on the subject of pro wrestling, to ensure IWA MS-S never came back until they cleaned up their act and another promotion like it never came into being in the state again. (IWA-MS didn't really go away though, they just moved across the river to deregulated Indiana.) Ohio Valley Wrestling is the poster child for post IWA M-S wrestling in Kentucky, as OVW will end even main event matches if there is any visible blood for fear of the commission. OVW fans were also notorious for their disapproval of anything vulgar or overtly sexual, though Al Snow made a strong effort to bring burlesque angles into the promotion. IWA Mid-South itself became lighter and softer over the years, though it never gave up hardcore death matches entirely.
• The "World Entertainment Wrestling" era of FMW, the trope namer for Garbage Wrestler, focused less on that trope naming garbage in favor of Kodo Fuyuki's so called "Sports Entertainment". Of course, lighter and softer for FMW was still on par with ECW.
• When Mick Foley hit legitimate main event status in late 1998, he traded in a lot of the more sado-masochistic elements of his gimmick for a more humorous approach (which Triple H referred to as a "human muppet") that included a sock puppet and a more child-like demeanor. He, however, still retained bits of his extreme tolerance for pain which, combined with his new more innocent behavior turned into The Woobie of the WWF.
• If a wrestler gets a start in a promotion with a much different target audience before jumping ship to another, which can be said of practically anyone who started of in ultra violence encouraging no language filter CZW who went on to be a Chikara regular(such as Chris Hero). Also can happen in a single promotion if it has different shows with different ratings, such as when Gateway Championship Wrestling decided it was going to discontinue its "adult" shows, meaning everyone now had to clean up for a family audience at all times or when a WWE wrestler moved from TV 14 rated Raw/Heat to PG rated Smackdown/Velocity. Then the whole of the WWE turned PG, except for pay per views up until Hell In A Cell turned pay per view PG too, making all of those continued shows afterward lighter and softer.
• Despite what its name implies, Total Nonstop Action had plenty of T&A on display when it first started, along with a hearty serving of hardcore Gimmick Matches and a general grungy atmosphere meant to be appeal to more mature audiences than WWE's. After they got a deal with Fox Sports Net though, TNA went family friendly, from "Sex Appeal" to "Six Appeal" with its six sided ring. Their pay per views were not quite as toned down and the atmosphere of the product got much heavier after leaving Fox but it has never descended to the level of the early days.
• The entire CHIKARA wrestling league is built around this. Television production is broken into distinct "seasons", with each season's DVD release being designed as a comic book cover. Several wrestlers are based on video game and comic book characters. There is no swearing whatsoever, to the point where attempts to start a swearing chant by the crowd are shouted down by the rest of the audience. Rule of Funny holds sway, with stunts like holding the first minute or so of a match in slow motion, while another has a wrestler who doesn't like where the match is going, so he pauses and rewinds the match several seconds, starts again, and this time reverses a move he now sees coming.
• SHIMMER is noticeably more family friendly than its older sister company, Ring of Honor. A casual glance may not reveal it, as the wrestling style is more or less the same, but watching enough of the matches the same wrestlers have on Ring Of Honor as opposed to SHIMMER will reveal it. Neither promotion hides blood but in SHIMMER it's rarely more than wounds from the scrapes and cuts unavoidable in sports, rather than the outright blood baths a "fight without honor" in ROH can degenerate into. Language on SHIMMER also rarely gets stronger than "Pretty Bitchin"^note who are more often referred to as "the tag team of Nikki Roxx and Ariel", with a single "F Bomb" dropped shocking the audience^note it could probably be attributed to Ayako Hamada not being a fluent English speaker. At ROH events, the audience themselves drop plenty of F Bombs^note chanting "Fuck The Divas" at Serena Deeb's return match with Sara Del Rey against Amazing Kong and Daizee Haze, both because Deeb had an "anti diva" gimmick and as a jab at WWE, who released her that year. Finally, SHIMMER wrestlers are hardly ever played up for sex appeal^note Rayna Von Tosh had a pinup gimmick but never did more than pull off a pair of gloves and sexual themes are never central to angles. Ariel and SHIMMER co founder Allison Danger were previously part of the "Christopher Street Connection" in Ring Of Honor, a stable of exoticos^note wrestlers who aim to emasculate their opponents into submission during matches through sexual harassment, beloved exoticos at that. "The Lovely" Lacey, who was part of SHIMMER's first main event, was also central to one of ROH's biggest angles where her having sex with Jimmy Jacobs^note not shown but part of an important discussion lead to The Age Of The Fall, which ended up spilling out of ROH into several other feds, including some overseas. Lacey then leaving Jacobs after having sex with Austin Aries^note not shown but he kissed and told lead to the end of said Age Of The Fall. Another point on violence, the other events that lead to Age Of The Fall and later brought it to an end involved Lacey requiring reconstructive surgery after being struck by a railroad spike.
• WWE shifted their free TV programming from a TV-14 rating to TV-PG starting in 2008; this was done to help distance the current product from the "anything goes" Attitude Era (especially in light of the Chris Benoit tragedy and the steroid scandals brought to light by a Sports Illustrated article in 2006 that named names), due to the company realizing that they are able to fit John Cena in the same kid-friendly superhero role that Hulk Hogan played in the '80s, as well as to help attract new advertisers (and a younger demographic). It's also been speculated that the shift was to accommodate Linda McMahon's run for the US Senate; an attempt to portray her as a CEO of a "family-friendly" organization, even going so far as to attempt to block all videos on YouTube taken during the Attitude Era. Nevertheless, when the campaign failed, it didn't result into the TV-14 rebound some fans were hoping for. Which may or may not cast doubt on if this was ever really a factor at all. Though teasing a few times that it might be getting edgy again, so far WWE hasn't followed through, and probably aren't going to anytime soon.
• WWE's revived "ECW". It was used more as a launching platform for up and coming wrestlers (most famously, CM Punk, by far the most successful of its alumni) and a place to dump useless ones. During the last leg of its existence in 2009, the exceptions were midcarders Christian, William Regal, and Shelton Benjamin, who carried the place. If it hadn't been for them, WWE wouldn't have upper-midcarder/lower main event talent Sheamus.
• John Cena's "FU" (a common internet acronym for "Fuck You") was renamed to the "Attitude Adjustment". Similarly, the STFU ("Shut The Fuck Up") was renamed to the STS and then the "STF Crossface Combo" (in short, they only had one good name for the move).
  John Cena: "I know that kids are watching my every move and there are a lot of parents know their kids look up to me and [...] I kind of live by the motto — 'Hustle, Loyalty, Respect'. If someone is out of line, I think instead of giving them an FU, it's better to give them an attitude adjustment."
  • The F-U was also a Take That! to the F-5 finishing move of Brock Lesnar. Officially, one of the reasons for changing the name was that the reference was beyond outdated, as a lot of Cena's present fanbase wasn't even toilet-trained when Lesnar was first wrestling. Curiously, they kept Five Knuckle Shuffle.
• Michelle McCool compared to her initial heel gimmick. When she first turned in 2009, she was a ruthless Blood Knight who savagely attacked Maria Kanellis and Eve Torres in an attempt to break their legs, and tried to break Melina's jaw. When she hooked up with Layla to form LayCool, she instead became a ditzier Valley Girl - where her taunts amounted to catty Mean Girls-esque taunts and skits like pouring punch over Mickie James or smearing lipstick over Beth Phoenix. Arguably this was in fact a good change - revealing that Michelle had quite a knack for comedy - and she still managed to be treated as a serious competitor. The new gimmick allowed for more slapsticky comeuppances for her too.
• Layla herself began as a very sexual character, as she debuted two years before the PG switch. Even after, she was presented as a Dark Action Girl and Femme Fatale. Upon joining LayCool, her character became ditzier and hammier as opposed to outwardly violent. After the faction disbanded and Layla became a face, she kept the playful comedic edge.
• Jillian Hall overlaps with Denser and Wackier. Her initial heel character was quite brutal, and was prone to sneak attacks backstage. She eventually adopted a Hollywood Tone-Deaf character who thought she was a good singer - and was more stupid than actually malicious.
• Eve Torres's heel character was initially a "hoeski" who had no problem manipulating Zack Ryder and John Cena to achieve her own wishes. Upon joining the women's division again and becoming Divas' Champion, she instead focused on being more a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing - dropping anything sexually manipulative.
• Kelly Kelly began as a stripper and Fanservice dancer (she and Layla were in fact part of the same dance troupe). As they moved into the PG era, Kelly dropped any overt sexuality to be presented as a Girl Next Door. Likewise her ring work initially had a Good Is Not Nice edge - where she would get borderline heelish, using illegal submissions and screaming in her opponents' faces. Then when she started getting pushed for the Divas' Championship, she adopted a more playful move-set - including giving her opponents a stink face.

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