STAMFORD, Conn. (GNN) — Broadcast standards executives are re-evaluating twenty-year Smackdown veteran Bruce "The Midge" Bronco’s signature entrance slogan, "Time to R*** Some Face!", questioning whether the beloved catchphrase has quietly fallen out of step with modern corporate sensibilities.
Bronco, a 4-foot-1 subterranean Dwarf forged in the deeper shafts of Mount Gundabad, has bellowed the felony threat into a live microphone before every televised match since 2004. While network executives continue to laud his stage name and novelty cruiserweight billing as a progressive milestone for stout, subterranean humanoids with a +2 racial bonus to constitution, media watchdogs argue his pre-match promise of aggravated cranial sexual assault feels distinctly "Halo 2 lobby."
"Today’s viewers expect more nuanced threat phrasing," said Standards and Practices Vice President Lydia Sterling, noting that Bronco’s foam-pickaxe merchandise saw a 4% dip among suburban mothers in Q3. "Specifically, limiting the assault strictly to the 'face' feels reductive to modern audiences who value holistic, full-body trauma."
Defenders within the locker room insist the line is a harmless relic of the Ruthless Aggression Era, pointing out that the 285-pound master blacksmith always delivers the trigger word with a family-friendly wink before severing his opponent’s Achilles tendon with a folding steel battleaxe.
Bronco, 194, rejected calls to retire the slogan during Tuesday’s media scrum, braiding a promotional Slim Jim into his floor-length beard while explaining that he only screams the phrase to honor his late clan elders, who died in a smelting accident.
Network brass have proposed a compromise for Friday’s broadcast in which Bronco will still be launched over the top rope from a miniature circus cannon to the sound of a slide whistle, but will scream a revised, sponsor-approved pledge to obtain enthusiastic verbal consent before caving his opponent's orbital bone in with a commemorative anvil.
