I personally don't buy into this IWC thing. The term itself is problematic to me. What does it even mean? The internet is so widely used, what makes it so special with regards to wrestling fans? It's like trying to create some sort of special movement when there really is none. There is no official platform as far as what someone in this so-called IWC is supposed to believe, watch, think, like, etc.
I think there are wrestling fans, plain and simple. The degree to which they are fans will vary, as will their opinions and tastes. All the internet really does is make the distribution of match footage from different eras and promotions more easily accessible. That's not to say the internet magically began the idea that people were aware of this stuff suddenly, just made it more widely available.
Before YouTube and broadband connections to download hours of footage in minutes, there were tape traders. Before the internet "dirtsheets", you had dozens of wrestling magazines that covered all the territories. But now, you are a few clicks away from finding things that took time and money to find.
Is this IWC supposed to be smarter to the business? Probably more so than fans of 20 years ago, but I think this really is a "depends" sort of thing. You can go on the internet and look up what certain lingo is supposed to mean. There are more ex-wrestlers out there writing commentaries on the industry, or open about answering questions about what happened at certain events or their views of what is right or wrong in wrestling. Instead of being exposed to only the matches that you see at your local territory or on TV, you can more easily find matches from almost any promotion around the world, much more easily. Fans today aren't going to accept the kind of matches the WWE was putting together in the first two Wrestlemanias.
At the same time, there will always be much about the business itself that will likely not be widely exposed. It's not like anyone comes out of wrestling school knowing everything they need to know about the business either. Maybe enough to start recognizing things like the ways that one wrestler is carrying someone that's green.
This is why I bristle at the term IWC like it's really anything, much less something special.
There are fans. They like what they like, they hate what they don't.
So I see fans as being like those of any other form of entertainment, be it music or comics. The masses are going to like what's most widely available. The WWE is akin to a big mainstream movie, or like a Batman comic, or a Justin Bieber or Metallica album. They are all recognizable brands to almost everyone, and there is a huge audience that digs that stuff. Then you have the more trendy types, maybe they want to reject anything popular for the sake of seeming different. Maybe they just don't like what the mainstream stuff represents. So they gravitate towards ROH or Chikara. Some of it is top notch stuff, some of it is an abomination to old-school wrestling fans. The same applies to music or movies, some do prefer to lesser known stuff for various reasons. Maybe it's a more informed opinion, maybe it's not. But for whatever reason, it appeals to them. Then you get the super hardcore guy, the small minority that have their finger on everything. They know all the small bands that are just starting out in Pittsburgh, they watch the movies that only make it into a few art houses, or don't even get very good DVD or streaming distribution. They watch wrestling promotions that are done out of airplane hangers. But they also know the mainstream stuff, know a great deal of history of whatever form of entertainment they're into. In essence, nerds for whatever they are into.
My opinion on where Bischoff has gone wrong is in thinking there's some mean little IWC that's voicing their opinions about wrestling. It's nothing new amongst fans. And it's not just limited to the super-fan that prefers "indy" rasslin'. All the internet has done is provide a forum for a lot more people, informed or not, to voice when they like or don't like what they're seeing.
Any time you put something out there, someone's not going to like it. Doesn't matter how good it may be, someone is going to call it shit. By the same token, if it's the drizzling shits, or if you really screw up for real, someone's going to call you on your bullshit.
So I don't really know. All sorts of people engage in conversations on the WWE Universe pages, don't they? They engage on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Anyone can and probably has at one point peeked at a dirt sheet.
Super fans though? I don't know, it's anyone's guess, and probably varies depending on the popularity of wrestling at any given time. I'd say a very small percentage.
