I haven’t really been paying as much to wrestling as much as I had been in prior months, but I recently watched a match because my friend brought up an interesting observation that piqued my interest and made me want to see it for myself. It was during the Big Show vs. Roman Reigns match on the 12.22.14 edition of RAW, where the crowd inexplicably turns on Roman Reigns.
Up to this point, Reigns had been built up as a face (good guy) that was rapidly ascending through the ranks, and had potential World Champion contender written all over him. He’d been derailed for the better part of the last few months with more or less a back injury, but has returned to television in recent weeks. His character gave no reason for the crowd to turn on him; contrarily, WWE even had his character have a minute or two during a live event to telecast “an update” on his health, and a general cheeseball face message that he’d be back and working hard ASAP.
But (a noticeable contingent) the crowd still turned on him anyway. During his match with the Big Show, at moments of the match where he would signal for his signature maneuvers, brief periods of time where both performers could catch their breath and let the crowd react, the reactions from the crowd were not (all) the expected cheers of fans supporting the good guy, but that of boos and jeers of people voicing their disapproval. More than once, a puzzled look can be discerned from Reign’s face, and even at the end of the match, Big Show himself looks a tad perplexed by the unexpected crowd reaction throughout the match.
And therein lies precisely the whole impetus of this scenario, it was all unexpected.
This is where we are, in the current state of professional wrestling, fans behaving unexpectedly, deliberately; because they very much have bought into the idea that they control the wrestling industry.
Sure, the WWE runs the WWE, but as it’s been said countless times throughout history, talent can never become superstars, without the fans. Fans are ultimately the ones who choose and deny every single performer that exists or doesn’t exist, and it’s the fans that dictates who makes it, and who doesn’t.
The problem is that finally, the fans have become fully aware of this food chain, and are now using their powers, not necessarily solely for good.
Ultimately, the professional wrestling business is always walking a tightrope of trying to strategically deny fans the things they really, really want to see with the occasional payoff, but trying not to piss them off so much that they simply stop vesting interest in the product. However, the business is always trying to be the party that wishes to remain in control of the product, and they try to accomplish this by massaging storylines and characters to try and steer fans into expected patterns of cheering for, or hating particular talent.
As I said though, the fans are aware of this now, more than ever, in with the advent and evolution of social media, and the veil of privacy becoming thinner and thinner every year with the internet. And nowadays, lots of fans are flat out refusing to be steered, because they believe that there’s not as much fun in being on a track, when they feel like they can control the construction.
In essence, the fans are kind of the heels right now, in today’s professional wrestling dichotomy, by deliberately attempting to sabotage live product by reacting in unexpected manners. This is, for the most part, abusing the system.
There have always been smarks (“smart marks” AKA obsessive fanboys), but just in general, thanks to the wealth of resources at hand, all wrestling fans have the capability to become smarter than they’ve ever been, about the wrestling business. And now the current industry going down this slippery slope of where the business is aware that the fans are smarter, and the fans are aware that the business is aware of them, and it’s this constant game of one-upmanship of who has the upper hand. This is made no more prevalent then whenever Triple H cuts a promo and acknowledges whatever grievance of the week that is likely made on some message board or social media outlet about the current product.
To summarize everything so far, basically the current wrestling industry is that the business is trying to operate how the business has more or less always operated, but the fans don’t necessarily want to cooperate and play ball, so they’re deliberately behaving outside the norm of the paths that the business is trying to steer them down, and by doing so, they’re attempting to force the business to try and adjust.
In other words, it’s becoming insufferable.
The irony in this whole modus operandi is that in the end, the only people truly suffering from all this is going to be the talent itself. When fans boo Roman Reigns, because they’re revolting against the WWE wanting them to root for Roman Reigns, Roman Reigns is ultimately the guy that suffers. Unless the creative team can figure out on the fly how to re-jigger his persona to adapt to the influx of hatred towards him, he’ll flounder and eventually be written out. Not to say that such is impossible, more often than naught, it’s led to failed characters and storylines.
The WWE will survive this era, because the WWE is always-adapting, and they have the ability to change and evolve, like they’ve done for decades now. But every wrestler has a very finite clock above their careers, and frankly there’s way more of them with short clocks than clocks the length of Hulk Hogan or Mick Foley.
Ask Dave Ba(u)tista, who the WWE attempted to make into this superhero-comeback story at the Royal Rumble, only for the fans to see through the transparent promotion tour he was ultimately doing, to pimp Guardians of the Galaxy, and boo the ever-living shit out of him until WWE creative had absolutely no choice but to have him turn heel and acknowledge the hate and attempt (and fail) to use it against them.
Ask Damien Sandow, who went from potential future world champion to a guy that jobbed literally every single week, until the latest attempt to embarrass a guy, by making him the “stunt double” to The Miz apparently piqued the interest of the royal masses, to the point where they’ve forced the hand of the WWE creative team to recognize that they will not stop rooting for a guy that clearly had “jobber” branded on his forehead.
And then when the talent suffers and good wrestlers are released from the big leagues of the WWE, they’ll either become heroes in a smaller fed, which is great that they’re recognized, but name five wrestlers that would rather be a hero in Ring of Honor, as opposed to have a WWE paycheck. Or, they give up on their pursuits of being a WWE Superstar, and become a washout drug addict, if they can’t manage to land on their feet through more ordinary living.
The point of all this is that there’s nothing wrong with fans voicing their opinions to approve or disapprove of the way the WWE is running things. But there’s a difference between simply voicing opinions and straight up trying to hijack the storylines, which is pretty much what I feel like fans are trying to do, more or less for the sake of just wanting to hijack the storylines.
Based on what I see these days, if the fans had everything they wanted, then the main events to every RAW would be like Dolph Ziggler versus Damien Mizdow, Adam Rose’s Bunny would be the Intercontinental champion, AJ Lee would never lose the Divas title so they could always have an excuse to chant CM Punk, and Bray Wyatt and Dean Ambrose would somehow be Tag Team champions while simultaneously brutally feuding with each other.
Good? Possibly some of it.
Chaotic? Most definitely.
Potential for long-lasting storylines? Nope.
Best for business? Ehhh, I don’t really think so.
This is a slippery era the wrestling industry is currently in, and hopefully it passes without too many undeserving casualties.
