I don't think WWE keeps fans in mind when booking shit. I really don't.
I see this opinion bandied about on this site a lot, and I don't completely disagree with it.
But, I don't think it's necessarily because they dislike or don't care about the fans. I think it's often because of two things: business and creativity.
Vince, Steph, Levesque, Laurinaitis, etc., have a ton of data related to things like ratings, PPV buys, merchandise sales, focus group results, reports from road agents, contract experts (things like main event matches are sometimes included in people's contracts, partciularly the part-time guys like Batista, Rocky, etc.), and a dozen or more other data points from people who are experts in the entertainment industry and have ideas about how to increase the company's income. These are important factors not just to the McMahon family and the Board of Directors, but to the shareholders who have invested in the WWE. To that point, they don't care about the fans, insofar as the fans do not know all of this wealth of information relating to sales, reports, contracts, etc.
Combine these business concerns with the fact that these are creative people. They have a storyline (actually, several that are more or less interconnected) in mind and...well....they think that their idea is better than everybody else's. This is not an idea limited to people who work for WWE. I see it on this very website. Some of you get married to one idea about how a storyline should play out and, when someone else offers a minor point of change or contention, I see people defending it like it was an article of faith to the Holy Catholic Church. The difference between most of the people on this site and the writers for WWE is that the WWE writers actually get paid for this, mostly because at some level, they've proven themselves capable of writing storylines for popular consumption. To that point, they don't care about the fans, because they know better than the fans what people want to see.
Does this mean we shouldn't discuss these things? Of course not. I'm of the belief that it's our right to piss, moan, bitch, etc., about things we like or don't like. I think we sometimes forget one important fact: most of us are going to watch regardless of whether or not we really like what's going on. Because most of us came to the conclusion at some point that we enjoy the storylines, the physicality, etc. of pro wrestling, even when certain parts of the story don't make us happy. However, the "casuals" may watch or they may decide to watch whatever else comes on Monday, Friday, Wednesday, or Sunday evenings. Does this mean that their storylines always satisfy the fans, casual or hardcore? No, but more times than not, they do. I was personally very unhappy that CM Punk lost the WWE Championship to the Rock at last year's Royal Rumble and even more unhappy when he didn't get included in the Championship Match in any way at Wrestlemania. But, if it weren't for that, we wouldn't have gotten Punk/Undertaker, which was an amazing match (yeah, yeah, not everybody thought it was....I don't care....I think it was an amazing match) and it made up, to a large part, for the fact that he wasn't given an even longer Championship reign that lasted at least to Wrestlemania. But I didn't miss an episode. Why? Because I'm a WWE fan. And that's what they know about me. I'm going to watch and I'm going to make the best of it, coming here to piss and moan when I'm unhappy with something, but I'm still going to watch next week.
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