Radar / Professional Wrestling

• Japanese wrestlers Bull Nakano and Dump Matsumoto, who briefly appeared for the WWF in the spring of 1986, both shouted obscenities and flipped the bird multiple times to the crowd during a (then-rare) women's tag team match during a television taping at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The offending actions — to incite heel heat from the crowd — were recorded on camera, and included when aired on Prime Time Wrestling that April. Interestingly, neither Gorilla Monsoon nor Jimmy Hart commented on the actions of Nakano or Matsumoto, and it is not known whether the FCC noticed.
• Crossed with a Bilingual Bonus: In 1988, the Rougeau Brothers (Jacques and Raymond) turned heel and sided with manager "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart and renamed themselves the Fabulous Rougeau Brothers. They claimed to be from Hart's hometown of Memphis, TN and carried little American flags around. Their self-sung theme song, "All American Boys", included the lyrics, "On peut pas les sentir/Dans le monde ils sont les pires/On aime les faire facher quand qu'on dit We love the USA." The French lyrics translated to "We can't stand them/They are the worst in the world/We like to anger them when we say 'We love the USA'." This elevated what may have appeared to be a standard Funny Foreigner act to something nastier for the benefit of French-speaking fans.
• Both Pat Patterson and Frenchy Martin (the latter Dino Bravo's manager) hosted Talk Show with Fists segments for the WWF's French-Canadian markets in the late 1980s. Patterson's was "Le brunch de Pat," while Martin's was "Le Studio." Both hosts asked their guests questions in English and translated their answers in French, often incorrectly so as to mock and insult the faces and praise the heels. Especially in the case of Le Studio, the faces were often wise to their host.
• "Exotic" Adrian Street was a master of this trope. MANY examples could be given, but this is a very good place to start.
• WWE may have gone fully PG in 2008, but that hasn't stopped them from taking a more liberal view of the rating. For instance, some fights now tend to have some blood spilled (Brock Lesnar getting a huge gash in his head from getting rammed headfirst into the steel cornerpost and having blood drip down all the way to his chest in 2013 was a highlight), and there are quite a few cases of Precision F-Strike such as "ass" and "bitch".
• Santino Marella to Beth Phoenix: "When we were together, I faked every organism!"
• When Santino tries to do the splits (attempting to copy Melina's entrance) and fails, Beth can be heard screaming "Why there, God! Of all places, why there!"
• The Divas' Costume Contest at Cyber Sunday 2008 took place just after the PG switch, featuring Kelly Kelly dressed as a sailor saying "I'll let you sail my boat any day" and Tiffany as a nun saying "I will personally take you to heaven".
• Even before the PG switch Kayfabe brother and sister Paul and Katie Lea Burchill had a debut promo with Katie calling Paul the most beautiful man in the world and Paul saying "it's every brother's dream to make his little sister happy. And whatever Katie wants, Katie gets". The angle got dropped before it could get out of hand.
• The Jerry Springer segment in 2010 had Kelly Kelly saying she was pregnant but when Santino was sleeping she needed someone to finish the job. And Jerry Springer says to Jerry Lawler "don't you usually pick up your girls during Recess?" (an Actor Allusion to Lawler's reputation with underage girls).
• Alicia Fox and Melina actually kissed in front of a PG audience. Ditto for William Regal and Zack Ryder, though this was Played for Laughs. Similarly, on the 2009 Christmas Episode of Raw, December 22, 2009, guest host New York Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon found himself under the mistletoe with wrestling's all-time Drill Sergeant Nasty Sgt. Slaughter, who said, with a completely straight face though in a more subdued tone, "Don't ask don't tell."
• From another Divas' Halloween costume contest:
  A.J. Lee: I am a Ninja Turtle.
  Matt Striker: Well, you're certainly giving me a Splinter.
  • And earlier we have Striker flirting with Maxine in an Ice Queen costume saying "you can certainly melt that outfit" and Maxine says "do you know what cold water does to a man, Striker?" and Matt then shuffles away with his hands cupped around his area.
• The NXT kissing contest had Matt Striker sarcastically say to Kaitlyn "Yes, I know this is the first time you ever kissed two people in the same night." Kaitlyn begins wailing, "It is! Please believe me!"
  • From the same episode she and Dolph Ziggler get caught making out in an equipment case.
    • Raised to Hilarious in Hindsight because of Dolph's later on-screen relationship with Kaitlyn's future ex-Chickbusters tag team partner AJ Lee.
• During an I Quit match between John Cena and Randy Orton, Cena got handcuffed and announcer Michael Cole remarked "I think he likes it that way".
• From Triple H, in re Chyna joining the Spanish announce team at King of the Ring 1998 during the tournament final between Ken Shamrock and The Rock: "I'm bi a lot of things but lingual ain't one of em. Wait, did I mean to say that?," to which announcer Jim Ross responded, "Probably not, but we're live." However, this WAS during the Attitude Era, and, Shawn Michaels HAD kissed Triple H on the lips on the November 3, 1997 Raw when both were in the original Heel version of DeGeneration X, who pioneered this kind of outrage for outrageousness' sake.
• Holy hell, Aksana embodies this trope. She's a Funny Foreigner who likes to show up in Teddy Long's office with some slow jazz music playing while she spouts all sorts of sexual innuendos. The highlights:
  • "Would you like to watch me with twenty men?"
  • "Would you like to do me with business?"
  • "I also know how to ride stick."
  • "Announcing isn't the only thing I can do with my mouth."
  • "I want my first time to be special as well, Teddy Bear."
  • "I only land on black."
  • "Do you need a hand with your job?"
  • "Growing up, I wasn't so good [at video games]. But as I got older, I learned to become an expert at handling a joystick."
• CM Punk gives us this little gem during the Divas' season of NXT:
  "Right now I'm not wearing pants and that's how I like to watch NXT every week."
• The blatant Les Yay between LayCool was especially glaring for a PG show and it reached a new level when the two attended Couples' Counselling.
• Layla has blatantly dry-humped Kelly Kelly and Natalya in matches. How any of them kept a straight face is anybody's guess.
• Maxine's old catch phrase took new meaning during an exchange with Alicia Fox:
  Alicia: "I think you're more comfortable on your back."
  Maxine: "Really Alicia? I prefer to be on top!"
• The Bella Twins made a bet to see which of them could be Daniel Bryan's "first". This one didn't actually get completely past the radar, as according to Gail Kim, the network decided the storyline was heading into a non-PG direction so she was brought in as his girlfriend. Though they did manage to imply that the twins confused the word "vegan" with "virgin". Thus, they slightly elevated the Bellas' image from Really Get Around to The Ditzes, since being seen as stupid is not quite as potentially harmful to one's image than being seen as slutty.
• On Raw, John Cena pretty much accused Eve Torres of being full of STDs (I'm disease-free and I wanna keep it that way).
• Continuing with Cena getting crap past the radar, how can we not forget his rap against the Rock? It was awesome, by the way.
  • It's less getting stuff past the radar and more shooting the poor thing point blank then taking a flamethrower to the remains.
• In 2008, a woman wrestler from the UK called "Pandora Boxxx" arrived in USWO and started harassing male members of the locker room, LT Falk most frequently. She had tattoos of big red, Hot as Hell devil girls on her legs, many of which were naked and one of which was mooning anyone who payed enough attention to them.
• In 2012 The Riot of ECCW were revealed when the members threw up a hand symbol, which happened to be identical to "The Shocker".
• On the 5/14/12 episode of RAW, while having a long antagonistic conversation with Evil General Manager John Laurinaitis, talking about the Pittsburgh Penguins, Cena told Laurinaitis to "go puck himself."
• While Cena's now changed move names from the STFU^note A name coined, In-Universe, by commentator Joey Styles, to the STF and the FU to the Attitude Adjustment, his fist drop move is still called the Five Knuckle Shuffle.
• The 6/11/12 episode of RAW saw the return of Vince McMahon, who (among other things) made fun of Daniel Bryan's short WrestleMania match by telling him backstage, "...I don't think I've ever finished anything in 18 seconds." To cap it off, he then says that he'll leave Bryan to "think" about what that means...at which point the Double Entendre registers and Bryan does a Double Take.
  • For a different kind of radar-dodging, he also mocked Jim Ross and his Bell's Palsy in a moment full of Dude, Not Funny! while hanging out with Hornswoggle in his office.
• On the 9/10/12 RAW, Sheamus has a segment in an attorney's office with David Otunga, Alberto Del Rio's Butt-Monkey Ricardo Rodriguez, and a couple of other suits. (Yes, It Makes Sense in Context.) Otunga asks the female suit (presumably a judge of some kind?) to swear in Sheamus. When Sheamus is asked to swear, his answer is:
  Sheamus: "Swear? I'd be happy to." *turns to Otunga* "Otunga, you are the biggest di-" *lawyer and Otunga cut him off*
  • But then WWE stops trying to get around the radar and just plain Brogue Kicks it down in one shot. Sheamus gives his surname as "Lipschitz" (stating that his mother was Irish and his dad was Jewish), and rounds off this explanation with the joke:
  Sheamus: "If you're Lipschitz..."
  *cue VERY long pause and Otunga looking appalled*
  Sheamus: "...what does your arse do?"
• There's this exchange between Eve Torres and Teddy Long...
  Eve: So you really think I'm a witch?
  Teddy: We're just one letter off.
• The 25th anniversary of SummerSlam has a segment where Fred Durst flips the birdie right in front of the camera, and instead of making the video blank, the audio was accidentally turned off for a moment. Or, as Botchamania 212 kindly puts it, his "middle finger is audio censored".
• A segment of Miz TV ended with Miz proposing to the crowd that Team Rhodes Scholars - because of Sandow's trunk color and Cody's new mustache (which apparently smells bad), be nicknamed... wait for it... "The Pink and the Stink." Anyone who's heard of the 'shocker' hand gesture got this immediately.
• Sunny first made her name in WWE as the manager of Skip (Chris Candido), first as a singles wrestler in 1995 then as 1/2 of the WWE World Tag Team Champions the Bodydonnas with Zip (Dr. Tom Prichard). She also managed the Godwinns (Henry O. [Mark Canterbury] and Phinneas I. [Dennis "Mideon" Knight]) and the Smokin' Gunns (Bart and Billy) to the belts as well, mainly due to her switching allegiances at unexpected times. Once while doing commentary with Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler, she said, "Do you think two men are all that it takes to satisfy Sunny?"
• Daniel Bryan to A.J. Lee: "With Dolph Ziggler, you should be used to things lasting 18 seconds."
• When the Bella Twins returned to WWE in 2013, Jerry Lawler tried to inform Michael Cole and John "Bradshaw" Layfield that Nikki was "bigger" than Brie. ^note Nikki Bella got breast implants during the twins' hiatus
• Daniel Bryan and Kane talking backstage. Daniel Bryan says he is "on Team Daniel Bryan, Team DB". To which Kane responds "that's fitting, seeing as you're acting like a DB right now".
• If you saw Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Syxx-Pac standing together while all wearing shirts with green pool balls back in the original days of the nWo, you probably quickly noticed the number on those balls.
• One match between Dolph Ziggler and The Miz - dubbed 'the Battle for Cleveland' because of taking place in Cleveland, which happens to be both men's birthplace. As such, both of them (both Faces at the time) came out in Cleveland team jerseys. Miz opted for Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns. Meanwhile, Ziggler came out with a customized Cleveland Cavaliers jersey. The name on it was "Show Off"... the number on it was 69. Given that most of his current gear features Double Entendre already, there's little doubt as to where Ziggler was aiming with that one.
• The beginning of HBK's theme continued to be used well after WWE became PG.
• Luke Harper of The Wyatt Family wears a black handkerchief in his back pocket. In the outdated handkerchief code used by the gay community, this identified one as a BDSM top. It isn't entirely clear whether the use is deliberate or if WWE isn't aware of the handkerchief code, but it does add another layer of creepy to Harper's creepy hillbilly gimmick.
• A much more mild example would be Sami Zayn's Helluva Kick (pronounced heh-LOO-vah) move, which is the official name of the move according to commentators. In a TV-PG setting that WWE is in, it's impressive Sami got away with having that as the name.
• On the September 29 edition of Raw, after Seth Rollins got his Money in the Bank briefcase back from Dean Ambrose (who mentioned he keeps some sick stuff in there), everybody in The Authority is standing around arguing about the tag team main event Triple H just booked when they hear a buzzing. After checking and realizing it's nobody's phone, they realize the vibrating sound is coming from the briefcase. Rollins quickly snatches it up and snaps, "It's an electric razor!" Rollins has a full beard, which at the very least means it's not his face he's shaving with that thing, and at the very most, it's not a razor.
• The 3/9/15 RAW ended with a handicap match between Roman Reigns and the Authority team of Randy Orton and Seth Rollins (keep in mind, Orton had just returned, and last we saw of him, he was getting his head curbstomped into steel stairs). Seth, who is getting his ass kicked by Reigns a la Ricky Morton, tries to tag in Orton, who decides this is the perfect moment to let Seth know that he's 'number one' on Orton's hit list. Either by a camera screw-up or the cameraman not knowing this was coming, Orton's Austin-esque hand gesture made it onto PG programming unblurred for a second before the cameraman suddenly panned down and they cut to another camera - which had a fan in the first row imitating the gesture enthusiastically. For added hilarity, Michael Cole is forced to acknowledge the gesture without actually acknowledging it, referencing Orton's "emphatic statement." Of course, an ass-kicking ensued a few seconds later.
• On WWE.com's "5 Things" series, one episode has the host discussed people who won titles in WWE, ECW, and WCW and at #2 was Lance Storm and his "Saskatchewan Hardcore International Title" (from the WCW Hardcore Championship). The host, not so subtly, says to "abbreviate that".
• Dramatic Dream Team: The Golden☆Lovers Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi call their finishing move, simultaneous four fifty splashes from the same turnbuckle, the "Golden Shower".
• For a good part of 2015, WWE's Paige was in a stable with Charlotte and Becky Lynch called "Team PCB"... eventually, after WWE realized that their original team name^note The Submission Sorority was already taken... by a porn website. Whoops. In any event, Paige turns her back on Charlotte and Becky and begins competing against them. At one point after beating Becky in a match and being interviewed by Renee Young, she says something to the effect of, "I've just beaten the 'B' of Team PCB..." (turning around a similar wordplay used by Becky herself earlier) "...now, all that's left is the 'C'." Now, 'B' and 'C' are obviously initials for Becky and Charlotte, as far as the ten-year-old viewer is aware. Adult viewers will catch on to the double meaning pretty quickly - particularly Paige's stress on the second one.
  • Less subtly Becky had already said something in a promo "The B of PCB can be a real B when she wants to."
• Shannon Moore's savior around the time he went to Tokyo Guentai, Lindsay Snow, happened to have a tattoo of a bare chested woman covered in the blood of a severed head on her right leg.
• On the February 1, 2016 edition of RAW, The New Day were cutting a promo about their opponents Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. At one point, they made an off-hand mention of the swathes of Slash Fic with the two as a couple that's on the Internet (going as far as to name-drop their Portmanteau Couple Name "Ambreigns"). While they (thankfully) did not go into detail, mentioning it all was enough for most fans to declare it more explicit and non-PG than anything The Rock (who utterly destroys the radar whenever he makes an appearance) has said ever since he returned.
  • To make matters worse, Kofi Kingston didn't even know what his partners were talking about with that. He's sorry he asked.
• On the June 6th, 2016 Raw, John Cena is cutting a promo on AJ Styles and mentions that AJ's a member of the "Pull it" Club.
• Speaking of the Bullet Club, several members swore frequently enough in New Japan Pro-Wrestling that it would get just about any Western TV show flat out canceled. Yet somehow this got past the radar with their TV network executives. How? Key word: Japan. AJ's own personal theme also very prominently features the line "Fuck your dreams, fuck your life" as one of its main lyrics.
• Finn Bálor's lifting-DDT finish is named the 1916. That doesn't sound so bad... until you realize what it's a reference to.
• Jerry Lawler calling the 2018 Royal Rumble match. Midway into the match, Lawler at one point called Byron Saxton "BS", in reference to his longtime broadcast partner "JR".
• From A.J. Lee's promo on the August 26, 2013 RAW, running down the Divas (Natalya, The Funkadactyls, the Bella Twins) who appear on E!'s Total Divas show:
  "I didn't get here because I was cute, or because I came from some famous wrestling family, or because I sucked... up to the right people."
  • She calls Paige a "tart" when doing commentary for Paige's match against Brie Bella on the September 5, 2014 Smack Down!, when "tart" as a slang term applied to women is slur that basically means "skank." It probably got by the censors because AJ was also using cutesy food-related nicknames for Paige like "my little crumpet" and "my little English muffin" to make it look like she meant "tart" as in the food.
    • She actually pulled off a subtle triple play there, since in British slang (remember, Paige is English) "a bit of crumpet" is a woman treated as a sex object or is a slang term for sex, with the term itself based in "muffin" being used as slang for female genitalia. So basically all her "cutesy food-related nicknames" were her calling Paige a skank.

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