how did audience reaction get to the point it's at today?

[Guest]

ha, christ, how long has pond-life been eligible for office work?

[Yakashi]

What I think makes me hate modern smarky fans so much these days is that I share an office with the worst type. There's about four of them in my office, I've never let on that I watch, but they're constantly coming up with the type of shit that does my head in. Literally just now I walked through a conversation about how, "Reigns can't even make himself look good, never mind anyone else." Yesterday consisted of them discussing how, "botchtastic," the women's match at Survivor Series was. They're all furious with the main event of Survivor Series, of course. And one of them recently noted that he loves Smackdown, "because Cana's not around."

Sounds like the letters page of Power Slam.

[Michael_3165]

I believe there are a few issues that have caused the crowd response to be as it is...

 

1) No longer does a match end without some elaborate false finish spot. All of the 'big' matches have multiple kick outs from alleged finishers that the crowd simply doesn't buy into the match until the closing stretch because they know that the match isn't going to end with a simple move. The only time the WWE get a genuine response is when a match ends out of nowhere (Orton at Summerslam or Goldberg at Survivor Series are prime examples and arguably got the biggest reactions on the internet). If you don't believe a match will end at any time why get invested in it?

 

2) A small minority of fans want to hate the product and go to shows with the intention of telling the company how crap it is. It seems counter-productive but on a number of forums people will bash the product no matter what the outcome. Unfortunately these are the same fans that make the most noise. The same goes for fans that believe they are a part of the show. Up until the mid 2000s the fans were spectators and the wrestlers were the stars. Then we got those 'bizarro land' crowd responses and unfortunately WWE gave them attention. Now some sections of the fan base feel they are a part of the show and they simply aren't. 

 

3) The Network has oversaturated the product and draw the curtain so far back that we now know what every character is like in 'real life'. I am not one of the Jim Cornette crowd that believe people should believe it is real but it is like a magician showing the crowd every aspect of a trick (Penn and Teller aside) - once you know you don't really appreciate it for what it is trying to accomplish. 

 

4) Lance Storm made an arguable point when he said that the company has presented the ownership as a hideous group of people; heel Mr McMahon, shrieking Stephanie and on/off Mr Nice guy Triple H. Because the fans know that the company picks the 'face' of the company they rebel against it, in part because they don't feel they should cheer for the same guy that the company endorses. This is a little simple for my liking as the crowd know that the whole presentation isn't 'real' but I can see something in his argument. 

 

5) Heel/Face dynamics. As many people have said they present their heels as being 'cool' by allowing them to do cool moves instead of limiting their heels to doing things that are traditionally heel moves. If you confuse the crowd like that you will, naturally, get a weird response.

 

6) Booking which is often 50/50 doesn't help the situation. If you know that whoever lost one match will likely win the next why would you be interested in watching and responding now? The same can be said for matches that happen on PPV only to be given away for free a few weeks later on RAW/Smackdown. The WWE clearly believe that wins and losses don't matter so why should the paying customer? Years ago the fans would beg for the face to one up the heel because they may never get another chance to get revenge for some dastardly act. For example, there was fantastic heat for the Michaels vs Mankind match at IYH10 because Michaels was fighting a lunatic who was hell bent on getting the title. The fact that this was the only time they fought one on one on PPV (to my knowledge) indicates that it meant something. Nowadays we have matches repeatedly being fought on a weekly basis. Why should anyone be interested in Ziggler vs Miz or Cesaro vs Sheamus (for example) for the hundredth time? Nothing is special and the fans respond in kind. 

 

7) The big one (IMO) is that the attitude era was the death knell for the company. Once you raise the bar so high that it can't be topped there is only one way left  to go - down. People reminisce about the good ol' days of Austin vs McMahon but the fact is they hot-shotted many angles, increased the levels of risk and went so outrageous that everything since has been relatively tame and a let down to many. People want to see wrestling return to the days of mega-star wrestlers and cutting edge storylines but when they compare it to an era that can't be topped they get despondent. 

 

Alternatively I might be completely wrong but just a few random - of the top of my head - thoughts. 

[Michael_3165]

I wonder if the sense of entitlement has been brewing in the background for a lot longer than Punk in 2011 or even Cena. There's a sense, and I don't know if it's come from the official WWE narrative or other sources, that two of the biggest stars in history, Stone Cold and The Rock, were underappreciated/a cool heel respectively, and it was the fans catching on to their greatness - not the WWE machine getting behind them - that resulted in them being the megastars they became. It seems clear to me that they're as much, or almost as much, a product of the system as a Hogan or Cena, but I bet there's fans who justify their actions now with the idea in their head that only they, the best fans, know who the top guys should be because they, not the company, made sure the likes of Rock and Austin became top guys.

 

Interestingly Austin and Rock got 'over' on their own personality and charisma. Nobody would suggest that Austin was a shoe in for the biggest name of the past 20 years - he came in as the Ringmaster for god sake! But he was given the opportunity and ran with it and made the company back him. It seems that now the performers simply don't (or feel they can't) take the bull by the horns and take risks to 'get over'. Cena was a slightly different case in that the WWE machine really got behind him but I doubt Austin, Rock or Hogan would have succeeded in quite the same way had other guys been put in those roles. But yes you are spot on that a small number of fans believe they - and only they - have a say in who gets pushed because they know better than a company that has been making millions of dollars for 30 YEARS. 

[Jazzy G]

I remember once seeing somewhere an idea for splitting the roster and rotating the talent throughout various seasonal periods to try and keep things fresh and to keep the heat on some of the guys. It'd be interesting, even if instead of some guys always being around for months on end it could just be alternate weeks or three week cycles with different roster members just to try and avoid overexposing members of the roster. That or properly bringing back squash matches, but a three hour show would make that rather difficult. I see they've had some more local enhancement talent guys around, which is a help. The other thing that likely kills somebody's heat is when champions are constantly getting beaten in non title matches week in, week out only for them to pull it out of the bag in the title match. It's all well and good saying they've been champions for 490 days, but I don't think Demolition were jobbing out week in week out of that reign.

[Lorne Malvo]

Fans cheering heels and what not also has a lot to do with the fact that there's no real reason to boo them. Owens is a heel but what has he done that's heelish? I'm not a massive NXT fan so I might be wrong, but when he powerbombed Sami into the ring apron, he was booed because he was being dastardly. Now he just basically abuses non-wrestlers and very little else in terms of genuine heel work - regardless of his in-ring work. 

 

Chickenshit who got handed the belt unfairly and has looked like losing it on multiple occasions, until his best friend saves his skin every time. Yet he never returns the favour for his best friend and constantly leaves him to take a beating. He's heelish enough for me! The problem with Owens isn't that his heel work isn't good enough, it's that WWE haven't booked faces strongly enough against him for him to get any sort of strong negative reaction. It's hard to hate Owens when we have literally no reason to cheer Rollins other than 'he does flashy moves'.

[Yakashi]

 

Fans cheering heels and what not also has a lot to do with the fact that there's no real reason to boo them. Owens is a heel but what has he done that's heelish? I'm not a massive NXT fan so I might be wrong, but when he powerbombed Sami into the ring apron, he was booed because he was being dastardly. Now he just basically abuses non-wrestlers and very little else in terms of genuine heel work - regardless of his in-ring work.

 

 

Chickenshit who got handed the belt unfairly and has looked like losing it on multiple occasions, until his best friend saves his skin every time. Yet he never returns the favour for his best friend and constantly leaves him to take a beating. He's heelish enough for me! The problem with Owens isn't that his heel work isn't good enough, it's that WWE haven't booked faces strongly enough against him for him to get any sort of strong negative reaction. It's hard to hate Owens when we have literally no reason to cheer Rollins other than 'he does flashy moves'.

This doesn't cut it. Owens and Jericho are the funniest and most entertaining act on Raw. They're basically a comedy act. A retread of Austin and Angle, only without the star power. They might screw the babyfaces, but the way they talk and the way they wrestle isn't heelish at all. Cracking jokes? Bullying terrible announcers in a comedic way? It's all comedy. And while I love it, it's stupid that your main event heels are comedy midcarders. I would never pay to see them wrestle as I don't take them, or any of their feuds, seriously.

[Briefcase]

I think the most staggering thing to me is that for 5 hours of TV a week it feels like some on the roster haven't had much focus on as characters so nobody really gives a shit. Apollo Crews for example had a debut but no backstory, no personality, just a wrestler thrown out there and they expect the fans to buy into that?

 

Its all so generic, by now with the amount of TV time everybody should have a story or character or personality to buy into, Its like watching Eastenders and expecting to give a shit about Tracey behind the bar who you know nothing about it.