Reigning in Some Support
When I started watching wrestling, WWE was always telling us fans how great we are, that we’re in control, and our opinions are the only ones that matter. Now we’re told to just sit back and watch the show and that we don’t understand the business. Is the business that hard to figure out? If a guy who is supposed to be cheered is getting consistently booed or a muted reaction by a PAYING audience, maybe it’s worth investigating beyond “fans don’t know what they want.”
There’s a great line from the fantastic book “How to Make Webcomics” where Dave Kellett is talking about how different webcomic artists handle fan interactions: “Whenever I hear a Webcomic artist say ‘My readers are jerks,’ I have to hold myself back from saying ‘Well, you attracted them.'” I think about that quote a lot when I read interviews with WWE Superstars where they talk about fans complaining about Raw or worrying too much about backstage politics. They attracted us (despite many attempts to change their audience completely).
On a completely unrelated note, Lucha Underground had a fantastic casket match on their last episode. It’s worth your time to watch it.
On a more related note, I will be joining FTW Podcast this Tuesday night to record an episode of their awesome podcast where we talk all things Wrestlemania and play the “Road to Wrestlemania- 31 Edition”, so you can see how the pros play! As you’ll come to find out, I don’t hate everything involved with Wrestlemania 31. It will be available to listen to Wednesday morning!