By Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt)

5/31/2018

The big news on the rumor wire comes from Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter. Coming off of the big $1Billion transaction for Smackdown Live, 21st Century Fox Executive Co-Chairman Rupert Murdoch told Stephanie McMahon, “NBCU is embarrassed by your product.”

This is rumor and alleged, but I don’t think anyone is asking themselves “who would believe that?” After all, unless it’s a part of your job, you work in sports, or you’re too far down the ladder to care, most wrestling fans don’t make a habit of making those around them aware of their passion. Just look at me! I am currently on the job market and while I am proud of this blog and podcast, it is pretty successful, and has been a wonderful study in what works in Digital Marketing, I would never think to open my interviews by shaking every attendees hand and let them know I’m a huge fan of Pro Wrestling. To be completely honest, if I said it, I’m sure it would come off as a warning.

Hey, I know you guys like me and all, but I just wanted to give you a heads up…I never grew up.

Even as a guy who spends his dough to advertise his blog and website, watch every hour of wrestling, every week, and am always looking to meet new wrestling fans, I thoroughly understand the perspective of the outside observer. Grown men, greased up, rolling around in the ring. And when they’re not doing that, they’re doing something completely off the wall, dressed in jorts, or (while becoming less of a habit) they do something social insensitive.

Now, while most people are offended just by the jorts, it’s the last piece of the puzzle mentioned that should strike fear into different networks and their choices in products moving forward. Some would say they would make those informed choices before the show even airs, but sometimes networks go in a different direction.  ABC’s experiment with Roseanne is a troubled case study that seemed to have the writing on the wall for its eventual demise, but it aired nonetheless.

After one night of its existence, those connected with ABC as well as Disney had to put out public remarks as to why this type of programming would ever be put on TV. That reason was to satisfy different markets of television viewership. What does that mean? The supposed ultra conservative individuals, who poo-poo one’s feelings, disregard people different from them, and are happy to turn a blind eye to certain issues because it placates their “beliefs”, need a television program that speaks to them.

I’ll admit, I only ever saw the worst of this program, because I’m a believer in not tuning in to help create change! ---God Damn’t! Is that Roman Reigns headlining ANOTHER WrestleMania!?! Maybe it’ll be different next year!!!---

Either way. The show turned into a PR nightmare from the get-go. Every episode seemed to highlight the strange way individuals who don’t care to assimilate, deal with diverse situations: They laugh at it in a mean way. While bullying should be ingrained in me, as a pro wrestling fan (see: Nia Jax bookings the since March. Either being bullied or now the bully), I’ve never been the biggest fan of it.

Fast forward to the demise of this program. The lead actress (Roseanne Barr) has gotten the show cancelled because of a stupid comment on social media. Barr says her comment was a joke, but I’m not sure who read the tweet and fell out of their chair laughing. The message, while not the point, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The first night of this show was an issue with viewers because of their creative choices, but the continued poor choices and inability to be socially aware destroyed this show’s efforts at a return to television.

Why does this matter? Well, it’s all because of what Pro Wrestling was, is and always will be. It’s a weird type of programming that mixes combat sport with soap operas. Weird romances, drinking problems, and Dad issues are a common occurrence. However, instead of seeking help from a licensed individual, they beat someone up to solve their problems.

It’s also a show that grows with society (see the Women’s Revolution), helps millions of fans find hope (see me and Make a Wish), and has such a strong following that they are recognized as a global leader for charity and social work around the globe. The WWE uses its brand to help facilitate a change for the better and I honestly think they should get more credit for what they do.

The problem with the WWE doing all of this good is that it has to be done on the back end. Not necessarily behind closed doors, but far enough away from the spotlight, that if you’re not looking for it, you’ll miss it. Why? Well, this is an entertainment company. Their product isn’t charity work, its Pro Wrestling.  Some wrestlers who participate in Make-A-Wish need to stay hidden to preserve their dirty, rotten, scoundrel personas. The rest of the situations, unfortunately, are sold as fluff pieces to a species that is naturally narcissistic.

Obviously here I’m recognizing how much great work the WWE does before I tear it to shreds. So…here we go…

While a small group of us never grow up, stay wrestling fans forever, and blog about it on a weekly basis, most people stopped watching when they were kids. Those who were kids and watched the attitude era (and never came back) fondly remember the creation of the Diva’s division. Matches where talented and not so talented female wrestlers would race to rip each other’s clothes off. Winner, of course, being the dirty fans who cheered this on. As a pro wrestling fan in the future (I mean today), I know that the WWE is embarrassed of those matches and wants to get away from people relating the Attitude Era to modern day WWE. If they gave that a try in the past month, here’s what the fan would have witnessed:

Big Cass beating up a little person.

On what was a tired punchline in the 80’s, the WWE continued to look for “easy laughs” in the 90’s and 2000’s (I’m not really sure the silence in the stadium counts as a laugh, but this had amuse someone) by trotting out people that were different from the common wrestling fan and then ridiculing them. When the WWE had a little person come out a few weeks ago (pretending to be Daniel Bryan. I know right!?! Daniel Bryan is short! How hilarious and creative!) I was surprised. Not necessarily by the choice (because hey, it’s the WWE), but that I wasn’t expecting something like this to come up.

 Sami Zayn calling out Bobby Lashley’s “sisters”.

Taking a hint from Monty Python, the WWE decided that nothing is funnier than having men dress up as women. So, when a failed promo by Bobby Lashley got ire from the fans, Sami Zayn helped us completely forget how horrible Lashley is at interviews by doing something completely unpredictable!  Dressing up three random dudes as women and having them describe their (fake) awful relationship with Bobby Lashley. Again…I’m not sure who this was for. Any way you slice it, there was nothing redeeming from this segment. Lashley didn’t come away looking strong, Sami had to turn his normally witty banter into threats because Lashley forgot his lines, and the domestic undertones don’t do anybody any favors.

Nia Jax bullying her opponents.

One of the most recent choices by the WWE was to turn the recently torn down superstar, Nia Jax, into a bully. Why is this troubling? Well, her WrestleMania story line was the exact opposite. Let’s not forget that the choice to make that the story line for WrestleMania was pretty lame, but now Nia’s character has turned into exactly what she was bullied about: a monster and a bully. I guess we can thank Alexa Bliss for at least warning us.

These moments all happen around the normal issues with WWE narratives: Superstars not being able to escape their ethnicity, champions being Caucasian, and women are emotional, to name a few.

At any time, the WWE could be trying to find new fans for their product but they keep taking a large step backwards for every step forward. It’s easy to see that there are good things being done with the company, but for some reason they keep going back to decisions that used to work (again, I’m not sure when they ever worked).

So what does this mean for the WWE and their creative team? Why would FOX say that NBCU was embarrassed by their product? Sales are sales and negotiations are negotiations. What I mean is, regardless of how FOX felt about the WWE product, they would want to put themselves in the best possible position. Therefore, a little “honesty” never hurt. Plant the seed that the WWE doesn’t have a perfect product, that the NBCU might be prepared to leave, and you could be saving yourself tens of millions of dollars. And if everything goes well, Raw could be headed to FOX as well.

It sounds like there are grand plans coming from FOX at this point, too. They want to have a studio broadcast that focuses on only pro wrestling, possibly (rumor miiiiiiilllllllllllllllllll) broadcast NXT, and grow their combat sports footprint. If FOX has that type of grand plan for their future, they might not only be using the comment as a negotiating tactic, they might also be warning the WWE to shape up.

It’s no secret that the WWE has made the deal with FOX and they could not have picked a worse time to come out with some of their most damaging segments (mentioned above) in a long time. I just talked about, last week, that the WWE needs to be better and more creative. In some ways, one could argue that they are at least moving away from the bad Lashley and Zayn story line and moving towards a “lets fight” story line. That same night, however, was when Nia Jax tuned into a bullying monster.

For FOX, they want to avoid the PR nightmare that ABC just dealt with, in Roseanne. FOX, regardless of what they might re-brand into, loves money. Money comes from pleasing a wide scope of individuals, not a single market. WWE helps FOX capture a new segment, but they also don't want to push old ones away. This is a five year contract after all. A slip up or a bad image would not only be a five year mistake. It would also consumer every year after that of making better decisions. 

I, for one, am tired of having to explain my way through my fandom of pro wrestling. I think FOX is at least aware of the image that the WWE brings to the table and are hoping for a slight pivot. I think I presented it best when I reminded FOX (again, last week) that the hardcore fans will never (EEEEEEEEEEEVER) go anywhere. We eat up story lines we hate and superstars we think don’t deserve it like candy. So, now is the time to ensure that the product, you just spent $1 Billion on, starts to make better choices.

As I usually make selfish pleas at the end of all of my articles, let this be another one! If FOX can tighten its grip and sell, to the WWE, that growth is good and change is how it can be done, then FOX can prosper from their transaction and I get to have a better, more respectable past time! Yay selfishness!

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