FanPost

Vince McMahon doesn't have (much of) a casual audience to work with

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WWE and its fans are obviously disconnected, and after some of the most brilliantly written fan posts I've seen on this site since I started reading it roughly a year and a half ago made me understand why.

I'll state the obvious: for the most part, WWE is not for hardcore professional wrestling fans. It never really has been and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Even with this, WWE has been stubborn to get in sync with its audience.

WWE programming, at least what is not NXT or Total Divas, is largely for a casual audience that will appreciate professional wrestling at its most superficial level: as an athletic, masculine soap opera that is on par with any other television show or theatrical live event. It's a model that has given Vince McMahon success before.

However, said audience has largely evaporated. The superficial value of WWE declined sharply after the conclusion of the Attitude Era and the renaming, and audiences have consistently left since 2002. That left behind the smarks; the die-hard, savvy, informed professional wrestling fans that will consume wrestling no matter what.

And these fans have essentially remade the industry in the sense that no longer fans were simply going to accept whatever was thrown at them without a higher threshold of scrutiny. These fans challenged the promoters: they were either going to step up and evolve artistry and detail, remain superficial, or do both. Lucha Underground is a perfect example of both.

While Lucha Underground may involve very artistic and detailed professional wrestling performances, the show is closer to being a homage to lucha libre cinema as it is a traditional promotion. Producers such as Eric Van Wagenen and Chavo Guerrero, as well as performers such as Johnny Nitro, have all said the same thing -- the show is designed to appeal to fans and non-fans of professional wrestling. The show cares deeply about presenting as strong of a narrative as possible -- as such, it is currently the most critically acclaimed professional wrestling show in North America.

For what its worth, Vince McMahon has always tried to both, starting in 1999 and 2000 by featuring a mid-card that was blatantly designed to appeal to WCW and ECW fans that favored performance artistry over soap operatic shenanigans. However, largely because of the late Chris Kreski, WWE programming at the time was still entertaining enough to the casual viewer because the complex angles were well executed. The balancing act continued from there until McMahon made a consequential change in his modus operandi.

John Cena was the WWE's hottest hand throughout late 2004 and all of 2005. With McMahon pulling the trigger to make the Massachusetts native the promotion's star attraction, the show was soon structured to ultimately do nothing but achieve that goal at all costs, even to the point of selling Cena as the successor of The Rock and Steve Austin. Fans didn't buy into that last point and ever since then, WWE has maintained an acrimonious relationship with its fanbase.

In essence, unless you were an ardent fan of professional wrestling, it soon became very difficult to enjoy WWE programming on a superficial level. While you say that the derisive reaction towards Cena largely came from the smarks -- and that's mostly correct -- creative quality began to suffer. Why? Because all the creative efforts went towards building up Cena.

Needless to say, creative quality never got back to what it was a decade plus ago due to that decision. History is repeating itself with Roman Reigns. Why McMahon is doing it again, I'm not sure. A such, casual audiences have dwindled because the show is no longer worth watching on its own merit. In other words, if you're sticking around now, you're either a die-hard professional wrestling connoisseur or a WWE fanatic.

McMahon recognizes this issue. After all, he brought back Shane McMahon to help sell a Wrestlemania that is short on starpower and huge on how many asses are needed to fill those seats. In fact, that's why he always brings back legends of yesteryear around Wrestlemania season -- it's the only time he can capture an audience that will tune in to professional wrestling because its a damn good show and not because it's...well, professional wrestling.

Professional wrestling fans, unsurprisingly, moan and groan about it because they feel that McMahon could be using "Wrestlemania season" to build new stars. New stars that are legitimate hot hands. Like Dean Ambrose. Not so much Reigns, however.

In that effect, WWE leaves much to be desired. Of course it's going to get an audience and it's going to win the 8PM ET and 9PM ET hours on cable because for one, Monday is a weak night on cable, and two it is the most accessible professional wrestling out there period.

And sure, McMahon is still going to try to cultivate a product that appeals on both a superficial level an artistic level. His new strategy of course has been the growth of NXT, which is honestly for the smarks. NXT is essentially McMahon's attempt to corner the market on independent wrestling in hopes of retaining the smark audience and monetizing it. It's sound business strategy. On the other hand, he's going to keep Raw and Smackdown as superficially appealing as possible however he sees fit.

The bottom line? What he thinks is appealing and what the fans think is appealing are two completely different things. The programming that he develops is designed to appeal to a casual audience, but his actual audience is anything but casual.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.