Rey Cash looks at the current wrestling landscape and tried to make sense of things by looking at the  different perspectives involved: company, fan, and wrestler.

There has never been a more confusing time in my wrestling fandom than right now.

On paper, this should be the best time in the wrestling business since the late 90s.  We have two easily accessible, viable, thriving wrestling companies with shows spanning 4 nights a week (not counting Pay-Per-Views).  We have the best Independent scene maybe ever, only rivaled by the post WCW world with the beginning of places like Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla.  Wrestlers are more accessible than ever, with a good portion of them interacting with fans on social media and the majority willing to do more interviews than any other time in history.  We should be in a good place.

 Clearly, you know that’s not the case.  The wrestling part?  That’s pretty damn solid.  In fact, except for the controversies and criticisms of Monday Night Raw, most fans would say the wrestling is regularly excellent.  What’s gotten almost unbearable is the rhetoric surrounding wrestling, and that’s starting to affect the entire wrestling world.

 I’d like to break this down a bit, but we’re going to have to look at this with a LOT of nuance, because as we’ve learned in wrestling, nothing is tangible and everything is controversial.

 The most appropriate place to start would be with the sudden and shocking releases that the WWE has made multiple times over the past 18 months.  With WWE reporting record revenue over the past few years, the multiple billion dollar television deals, and most recently, leasing the WWE Network to Peacock for another billion dollars, the idea of WWE releasing wrestlers under the guise of “budget cuts” feels callous, unnecessary, and downright disrespectful.  And even if there is truth to that claim (which there is), it’s still a horrible thing to do to your talent in a pandemic landscape.  To make matters worse, WWE didn’t just “trim the fat” as they used to do once upon a time.  Regularly and currently used wrestlers were surprisingly released.  Top stars were released.  People in ACTIVE storylines were released.

 WWE is a business first and foremost.  They’ve never lied about that, and it’s never been more apparent than now.  And as much as we want them to be all about the wrestling, that’s not their primary goal.  Vince realized 40 years ago that wrestling alone wasn’t going to get him where he thought he and his company should be.  So, he slowly moved away from the regular tropes of “traditional” wrestling.  He called his performers “superstars”.  He called his product “sports entertainment”.  Eventually, thanks to a lawsuit from the World Wildlife Fund, he changed his company’s name directly to include the word entertainment.  He also took his company public, which greatly expanded his reach, his bank account, and his company’s scrutiny.  See, the WWE and Vince’s FIRST priority is not to the fans or even to its wrestlers and employees.  It’s to its shareholders.  As a publicly traded company, they have a fiduciary responsibility to that stock price and the people who own shares.  And this is where so much of the disconnect between company business and fan understanding begins.  We don’t control the bottom line of the WWE as much as we think, we’d like, and we do with almost every other wrestling organization.

 Now, this fact sucks from a fan perspective.  As a fan base, we’ve been taught that what we want is what matters.  We’ve been taught that our cheers or our boos have a direct line to what the company does.  The more a character is supported, the stronger he or she is pushed.  And for every other company, this may be true for the most part.  But every company isn’t the WWE and doesn’t have the structure that they have.  John Cena was the first “guinea pig” for this phenomenon.  John did record business for the WWE during his run.  Houses sold out, merchandise was sold at a ridiculous rate, ratings were strong, and Pay-Per-View numbers were really good.  But the adult fan base couldn’t stand him.  They audibly booed him and complained about him online, claiming that Vince wasn’t listening to the fans.  So, think about this conundrum.  WWE, a business, is doing fantastic business with a particular wrestler on top.  The fans, who are the consumers, aren’t happy with that certain wrestler as the main star.  Somebody must be spending that money on tickets and merchandise and Pay-Per-Views for the business markers to be what they were.  What should WWE do?  Listen to the fans or listen to the bottom line?

 I do want to be clear that I don’t believe that it is a fan’s job to care about the business dealings of a company that they support.  I do, however, think it’s their job to understand that their personal desires can and sometimes will deviate from the business dealings of that company.  For fans and those critical of WWE, that last part is imperative.  I hated that WWE released the wrestlers.  It bothers me in a very serious way and is something I’ll never forget in my fandom of theirs.  I also understand that while I don’t like the reasons, it doesn’t mean that they are any less legitimate.

 This brings me to the fan’s perspective.  I’ve touched on it a bit in my previous paragraphs, but to say that fan rhetoric these days is terrible is an understatement of massive proportions.  There has always been an anti-WWE sentiment since they bought WCW.  World Championship Wrestling was everything that the WWE (then WWF) wasn’t.  WCW came from the lineage of the NWA and was always a wrestling focused company.  Even with WCW focused on the older stars of the time, they still focused on the Cruiserweight division and those top stars were looked at as “WWE guys”.  Also, WCW was a southern staple that made it big, whereas the WWE was the fancy company in New York.  Most importantly, older fans will always harbor an abhorrence for Vince McMahon for buying his father’s company and killing the territories to create his national powerhouse.

 In the spirit of WCW, we’ve seen the rise of All Elite Wrestling.  AEW is owned by Tony Khan, a child of the Attitude Era and a wrestling die hard fan who had the capital (his father owns the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham FC) and the passion to create the biggest wrestling company since WCW folded.  AEW has filled a place that anti WWE fans, those who felt unfulfilled with the WWE, or fans willing to follow something new were begging for.  Khan’s company is built largely off the backs of the top stars of the Independent scene, legends of the current day that had never had their name in the marquee of the WWE’s world.  That, added with some major WWE defections and Legends, started a revolution of sorts.  Most importantly, the structure of the company is one that delivers on what fans want desperately – influence.  The cheers and boos of the AEW crowd play a major part in the creative decisions of the company.  Speaking of creative, AEW offers a large sense of creative control to their wrestlers.  Performers create their own promos, pitch and portray their own characters, and structure their own matches.  There is a genuine feeling of synergy between the company and the fans.

 The interesting thing about this can be seen in the business side of the company.  AEW is privately owned, as opposed to WWE being publicly traded.  Shad Khan, the father of Tony Khan, is a multi-billionaire, but unlike the McMahons, all of their money isn’t and will never be in wrestling, which breeds a different level of risk between the companies.  In fact, Tony has mentioned that their company is currently running at a loss, with continuing to employ the wrestlers that they do and making a sizable investment in a video game division.  They’ve partnered with Warner Media and TNT for two cable TV shows and have outworked their contract deal twice to get better, more lucrative ones.  AEW is here to stay and has shown that they are a legit alternative.  Because of this, there is a good portion of the fanbase that is begging for AEW to beat and end the WWE’s reign on top of the wrestling world.  There’s also a desire of all of the talent that WWE apparently is misusing to go to AEW on their own volition, even though AEW has had clear issues using the number of wrestlers that they have contracted regularly (AEW currently has more wrestlers under contract for their one current show than WWE does on their three main shows total).

 Let’s dive into this idea of fans believing that wrestlers are being misused, and let’s use an example.  Bray Wyatt, who has been a WWE main stay and a top talent since his debut, was shockingly released this week.  Bray, who hadn’t been seen since the Monday after WrestleMania 37, was reportedly waiting for the right creative direction for him to come back as he was released.  Immediately, there was an understandable expression of support, shock, and anger.  And there was a large belief that Bray was misused.  Now Bray Wyatt is a former WWE Champion, has been a major player in the WWE, has been a part of some of the most memorable moments of the current era, and has feuded with and beaten some of the biggest names in WWE history.  He’s also been one of the most creative wrestlers possibly ever.  His characters, his promo skills, and his ability to reinvent himself will be looked at as legendary.  Have there been moments where it felt as if his character wasn’t put in the best situations?  Yes.  Has it felt at times like he could’ve and should’ve done more?  Absolutely.  However, the world misuse ignores all of the positives he gave to us.  And since WWE is unlike AEW and is extremely unilateral in their creative direction, we have to give WWE some of that credit as well.

 On this past week’s Monday Night Raw in Chicago, which is the first live show since Bray was released, there were chants of “We Want Wyatt” at times throughout the show.  Ronda Rousey, a former WWE superstar and MMA legend who’s notoriously had issues with the fan relationship in WWE, tweeted:

 This is coupled with the fact that Bray has had the unfortunate honor of winning multiple “Worst” awards on the fan voted Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and you could often find a large contingent of IWC fans vocal about their disdain for Wyatt and his characters.  So, can we say he was misused if there was a group of fans who didn’t give him a chance and didn’t enjoy him?  And does Ronda have a point, given that growing contingent of contempt for the character could’ve possibly led to Wyatt not being considered untouchable?

I’ve seen you same “fans” chanting #WeWantWyatt last night chanting “We want beach balls” over @WWEBrayWyatt performing. If the @wwe treated him like he was expendable it was because you ungrateful idiots did first

— Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) August 3, 2021

This leads me to the perspective of the wrestlers themselves.  Mickie James, who recently was given her own release coupled with a heartless act of sending her remaining things back to her in a trash bag, had her own thoughts on Bray’s release.  She tweeted:

This isn’t against Alexa. I love her. She’s an incredible performer who is killing it in a role she was given. She always does. We as artists take every role we’re given & turn it into gold. He, she, they both did that. Like it/not. Facts are facts. So sorry if that offends you.

— Mickie James~Aldis (@MickieJames) July 31, 2021

It’s completely understandable for Mickie to have disdain for WWE given the way she was treated upon her exit, as well as seeing so many of her contemporaries lose their jobs.  Her tweet, however, was off base on so many ways, and that is evident in her follow up tweet, seen above

In one breath, she claims that Bray came up with a gimmick that WWE didn’t know how to book correctly and just gave it to another person, then she says that the wrestlers are artists that take what they’re given and turn it into gold.  So if Bray came up with it and WWE didn’t know how to book it right, shouldn’t some of the blame be on Bray?  And she tried to walk back her shot at Alexa, but the tweets still felt unnecessary and selfish.  This is just a small example of how vocal the wrestlers of today have become.  Whether good, bad, or indifferent, wrestlers in 2021 are more than willing to let their true thoughts be known.  It doesn’t matter if it’s about a fan, a company, or even another wrestler.  We’ve seen such movements as #TimesUp and #SpeakingOut be pushed primarily by wrestlers, as well as the growing concern of wrestler use in the companies.

 The perspective of a wrestler is the most salient.  They are, in fact, the life blood of this business.  The way that they feel and interact is the most relevant opinion in the business.  So, it’s simultaneously apropos and hilarious that wrestler opinions on the current happenings between WWE and AEW.  There are so many wrestlers disgusted and dis-enamored with WWE’s business practices and creative woes.  And there are another group, particularly Malakai (formerly Aleister) Black and Tyler Breeze who feel the opposite.  Both wrestlers were recently released from the company but look back on their time fondly and have been very vocal about how wrestlers should be more accountable for their fates with the company.  Tyler, in particular, has talked about how wrestlers know what they’re getting into with signing with the company, and how it’s their job to be ready when called upon but to not complain when they’re not used.

 Ultimately, everything is conjecture.  Wrestling is a subjective art built on the backs of deceiving fans.  Every company has one person who chooses who wins and loses, and the fan response can be looked at a million different ways.  The only concrete, factual evidence is the business returns.  Once again, it’s not the job of a fan to care about this, but it explains a lot about the ideology of the companies and in turn, the feelings and opinions of the fans and the wrestlers.  WWE may be at an all time low among IWC support, however they’re the most successful they’ve ever been.  This tells me that they’ve tapped into and doubled down on the fan bases that they know support them and have stopped caring about the fan bases that criticize their product, particularly the IWC.  TV ratings are lower now than they’ve ever been, however, Peacock subscriptions, YouTube views, and social media interactions are some of the highest in the entire entertainment industry.  This tells me that the fan base is consuming the product in a much different way than usual.  WWE has released a ridiculous amount of wrestlers in such a small amount of time, while reporting record revenue on their investor calls.  This tells me that WWE is trying to remain profitable in the eyes of their stockholders, and Nick Khan’s influence has changed how and what they value regarding their talent.

 All of these differing perspectives normally make for a beautiful convergence of wrestling viewpoints.  Unfortunately, there is so much vitriol in the air at the moment.  What used to be a fantastic hobby is turning into a cesspool of hatred, bias, and egocentricity.  There will always be bad things that happen in this business.  This is an unfortunate truth, however, this business has also shown a resilience that most mediums wish for.  If we can all get out of our own preconceptions and remember why we’re fans and what place we all play in this ecosystem, I feel like we can get back to wrestling nirvana.  As things currently are, however, we’re on the verge of wrestling hell.

FIN