WrestleMania 40 is proof that WWE needs to stop listening to fans

The internet has given a certain kind of entitled, contrarian, perma-sour ‘wrestling fan’ the mistaken impression that their deliberately antagonistic opinion actually matters

Nobody hates wrestling more than wrestling fans.

We’re a fickle lot. We can’t decide if people don’t show up to work enough, or if they’re being shoved down our throats. We don’t know if we want the women to have more screen time, or if they should go back to being valets and having bra and panty matches. We’re never happy, and that’s the way we like it.

WWE is, of course, the worst offender. Between the years of 2002 and 2022, the world’s largest and only real mainstream wrestling company couldn’t do anything right. During that period, WWE was scripted to appeal to precisely one person: former company CEO Vince McMahon. McMahon was notorious for allegedly ripping up scripts on the day of shooting, changing matches based on personal grievances, and even punishing fan favourites for becoming popular without his permission.

Opinion was often divided on what the exact problems were at any given time, but we could all agree on the root of the issue: WWE didn’t listen to the fans.

But, as we head into WrestleMania weekend, for what the company promises will be the “biggest WrestleMania ever”, WWE has turned a corner. With Vince McMahon’s exit and the promotion of Paul “Triple H” Levesque to head of creative, WWE is finally doing all the things that random YouTubers and Reddit commenters have been telling them to do for years – and, in Reddit and YouTube’s defence, it’s made the product better than ever.

But it’s time to stop.

I’m serious. Look, I’m not saying we have to go back to the days when WWE was deliberately antagonistic to its audience, and logical storytelling was an annual treat instead of the weekly norm. But giving fans the amount of power they’re currently being afforded is going to end in tears.

If you aren’t keeping up with WWE at the moment – and if you aren’t, why not? No, don’t say “I’m too busy having sex”, that doesn’t count – here’s all you need to know. The company’s plan for the main event of this year’s WrestleMania was originally, as of a few weeks ago, a match between top company champion Roman Reigns and a returning Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, who would be competing in his first real singles match in over a decade.

In the build-up to those plans being realised, fans hijacked weekly Raw and SmackDown tapings with chants and boos, demanding that the Rock be removed from the show and replaced with fan favourite Cody Rhodes. To be clear, Rhodes vs Reigns had already taken place the previous year, but because Cody didn’t win in that encounter, fans demanded a rematch instead of the once-in-a-lifetime matchup (and guaranteed money maker) of Rock/Reigns.

The thing is, even is Cody wins – you know, the result fans have been begging for these past 18 months – I’d give it a week before those same fans sour on him and end up demanding something else. For these people, the point isn’t to be entertained, it’s to have a grievance. WWE would be better off going with the nuclear option and just having Cody lose again. And I’m not just saying that because it would be really funny (although it would) – they really need to show these people that they aren’t going to be led around according to the capricious whims of a bunch of way-too-online cry-babies.

When you give those kinds of “fans” an inch, they will take a mile. For proof, just take a look at WWE’s biggest competitor, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), founded in 2019 and once considered a real contender for WWE’s position atop the wrestling mountaintop. There you have a company by and for wrestling fans, bankrolled by a billionaire with near-unlimited funding, who uses his vast wealth to make dream matchups between fan favourites according to the whims of the online faithful. Surely that’s a business model that can’t fail, right?

Well, despite some early success, and despite signing some of the top talent in the industry, AEW’s business has cratered in recent months, with viewing figures and live attendance gradually creeping back down to their Covid-era lows. While wrestling promotions usually thrive during the build to WrestleMania, AEW has bucked the trend, proving against all odds that a rising tide doesn’t always raise all ships.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that an entertainment company shouldn’t listen to its fans. Deliberately antagonising your customers is a business model that you can only get away with when you operate a country’s railways, or water supply.

But the internet has given a certain kind of entitled, contrarian, perma-sour “fan” the mistaken impression that their deliberately antagonistic opinion matters. Worse than that, they’ve started to believe that they’re the only kind of “fan” that exists, when the failure of a company like AEW should be proof of the exact opposite. I hope, as that other kind of fan – the kind that actually like wrestling – that WWE doesn’t give them any more of a voice than they already have.