Over the past few years, WWE has faced backlash from fans on multiple occasions, particularly in the TKO era. Now, President Nick Khan has made it clear how the company sees it, offering some insight into how WWE makes decisions behind the scenes.
Speaking with Sports Business Journal, Khan was asked how much fan backlash would be needed for WWE to change direction. His answer was straightforward.
Instead of focusing on online reactions, Khan explained that WWE looks at business performance to judge whether something is working. Things like TV ratings, revenue, and overall popularity are far more important to the company than social media comments.
“We will never respond to social media criticism. Again, if ratings are down, if revenue is down, if relevancy is down, it’s up to us,” Khan said.
Khan also addressed one of the biggest debates surrounding WrestleMania 40. When The Rock entered the WrestleMania main-event picture, many fans believed WWE changed its original plans because of the viral “We Want Cody” movement online. The common belief was that fan backlash led WWE to put the focus back on Cody Rhodes.
Khan disagrees with that idea. “The plan was always how it ended up in Philly two years ago,” he said.
According to Khan, WWE allowed fans to speculate while continuing with the story it had planned from the beginning.
“Sometimes it’s a predetermined outcome in wrestling. You want to throw the fans off. You want to let things bake and then boom, it ends up the way that we wanted it to end up. It never changed. That was just online rumors and gossip that we were changing,” Khan added.
He explained that creating uncertainty is part of good storytelling because it keeps fans invested.
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