Fans are the reason why WWE sucks?

[Crayo]

From PWTorch.com:

WWE Raw Live Perspective
Submitted by PWTorch reader Jason

"Let me preface this by saying that I have been a fan of wrestling for as long as I can recall. I have attended live events for about 20 years now and have been following wrestling both in the mainstream and behind the scenes for almost that entire time. I am the kid who used to watch ECW on public access TV on my local Philly station late at night.

Those things considered, every week I read different things on PWTorch about the three-hour Raw format weakening the product and WWE Creative needing to step up. I have agreed with these points essentially 100 percent since they have been shared. That is, until Monday night when I attended the live broadcast of WWE Monday Night Raw.

I don’t believe that the WWE Creative team, nor Vince McMahon, nor the three-hour Raws are the main reasons why the product has reached its current threshold of mediocrity. I think that a majority of the blame falls on the fans that come to these shows. At this point, WWE is playing to the lowest common denominator, and it is selling.

I arrived at the arena on-time and was seated to see the taping of the Superstars matches. And what I observed from that point until the end of the show was pretty much a case for my point. One of the first things that got me thinking about the state of WWE was fan reactions to certain matches. Essentially any match that had a heel in control for more than 30 seconds or went longer than three minutes created a restless crowd. Shortly after the first "boring" chant (during Kofi Kingston’s Superstars match), I started listening to the conversations of the fans seated around me. Many of these people were adults there with their children and were talking about everything but wrestling. Not a total surprise, but a very different audience then I had seen in years prior.

My real shock started during the Kane & Daniel Bryan match, though. I listened as individuals behind me spoke in astonishment that "Kane" was able to still wrestle, considering that he has been around for so long starting as Mankind, Cactus Jack, and then Dude Love before becoming Kane. Yes, they really believed that. But, during the Q&A panel, they were unable to identify Mick Foley as anyone famous. I even heard an audible “Who is that?” come from the same group. Furthermore, they were all very excited when Great Khali came out to give The Shield their comeuppance, and were shocked when The Shield defeated them. Later, they showed a video package highlighting moments on Raw from the past, and people were shocked when Vince’s limo exploded. They were enthralled with Stone Cold’s antics saying things like, “He really drove a Zamboni into the arena?” They were also uncertain that The Rock of the '90s was the same Rock of today, and could not identify Chris Jericho with long hair.

Then came the nail in the coffin. Brodus Clay and Tensai came out to wrestle and the arena exploded. They not only received one of the biggest pops of the night, but there were probably 1,000 male fans over the age of 35 mimicking the Funk-a-saurus Dance. It was watching this when everything came together. This is the majority of the WWE Universe. Not those of us familiar with the term German Suplex and can name a retired wrestler other than Ric Flair (who, by the way, everyone was waiting for and if I hear “WOOO!” one more time...).

This is the fanbase. These people are cheering for Khali and Zack Ryder. These are the people longing for Santino (and trust me there was much distress that he was not present for the show). WWE is hearing the cheers and selling the merchandise. It is unfortunate because as long as the majority of fans have no idea what they are watching and pop to dumb schtick, wrestling fans are stuck with this kind of programming."

Thought this was a fantastic read personally.

 

[Roi]

What does he expect? Most of the fans over the age of 30 are guys who went there becasue of their children.If the WWE give us a PG show,mainly orientated for children then,the true smarks will be like fuck that shit im not even wasting money for watching live a Khali match.All this guy saw are casuals than assisted to the show because their children wanted.And fans arent the problem...because the WWE is the one who is ¨choosing their fans¨.

 

[Brad.]

What's his issue? He sat near to a group of part-time wrestling fans with below average IQ. Hardly representative of the whole fanbase.

 

[Roi]

What's his issue? He sat near to a group of part-time wrestling fans with below average IQ. Hardly representative of the whole fanbase.

This..Call them casuals ity:

 

[Snowman1]

Wow, ouch.

Crowds can be different everywhere, but this was in Philadelphia. The home of ECW and the smart-mark capital of the world, the same people who booed Matt Morgan, Crimson, and Brian Kendrick out of the building in favor of Austin Aries and Samoa Joe at BFG 2011, but when Raw comes to town the crowd goes back to being silent. Figured that was just because nobody's over, but if WWE's really only drawing casuals in Philafreakingdelphia (and after the last 3 years that's hardly shocking) I guess it only makes sense that the product has been dumbed down to the levels of the dumb people who watch it.

 

[Mustafar Reginald]

You know, it's still possible to cater to that demographic while still retaining good story-telling and avoid a lot of the pitfalls that WWE's build to WrestleMania has fallen into. You can blame the fanbase all you want, but that doesn't excuse the poor booking of the product. Also, based off this article, it doesn't really seem like WWE is even trying to cater to this demographic. I mean, the people who the guys lists off as people that got the biggest reactions are hardly utilized for anything other than a throwaway segment. Hell, Zack Ryder is somebody that WWE felt the need to systemically ruin his push and momentum. Which makes the whole matters worse and the accusation that the biggest reason why WWE sucks today is the fans a little bit off-base. And as I illustrated in the first sentence, I already think it's a bit off-base.

Also, I wouldn't call this a, "fantastic read" as much as I'd call this a, "depressing commentary on the state of WWE's casual audience of males over the age of 35." But to each his own.

 

[Zack Ryder]

Wow, the reason why WWE sucks now, is because of the push they give the Superstars.

 

[Leo C]

That's pretty bad. Can't be a good thing, but then again, smarks were always the minority.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

TLDR atm. Crowds are bad when the product is bad. put on a good show, they'll respond.

IMHO

edit: OK so after reading it he basically just talked about things he overheard a few Blue fans saying? yawn

 

[seabs]

TLDR atm. Crowds are bad when the product is bad. put on a good show, they'll respond.

IMHO

You can tell you didn't read it lol. This is about WWE appealing to their audience by pushing the child friendly product and how the adults react positively to it.

It mentions men doing Brodus' dance and being annoyed at Santino's absence.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

Still a very small sample size to see a few bad adult fans at one show and say YUP THERE'S THE PROBLEM

If they had a more adult oriented show adults would show up and support it just the same. It is a bullshit cop out to say oh yea the fans are the problem with this kid tailored product. Don't buy it.

 

[Donald Trump_]

Yes.

 

[WadeKellerisretarded]

I 100% agree. The fans are to blame for why WWE sucks. Throughout WWE's declining years the fans continued to support the wrong people (pussy lesnar, alberto del blueberry, shameass) as world champs and now they're complaining about the crap they helped to create. Well as far as I'm concerned, the fans deserve all the crap they're getting. If they wanna support crap then they deserve to get nothing but crap.

 

[Shadie T]

So its our fault they put out a shit product? ity1:

 

[Toto]

Of course is the fan`s fault, Look at those shitty polls