Mustang Sally
Sells seashells by the seashore
Or, I don't know, book a product that favors the people paying for the product. I know it's a novel concept for you. But when you go see your favorite band at a concert, you kinda expect their popular hits. Not the one's they favor. When you go see Disney on Ice, you kinda expect the popular characters to be the highlights. Not the one's Disney favors.
It makes sense, although it's admittedly hard to do. After all, folks don't go to a "Disney on Ice" show once a week, don't follow the character development of Mickey Mouse on ice skates.....and in fact, if a different person played Mickey from one performance to the next, who would know it, anyhow?
Pro wrestling requires us getting interested in individual people who, while in essence are portraying cartoon characters, actually involve human beings who have their own problems and rewards in trying to be what their employer is telling them to be. For myself, I wonder if Vince McMahon's increasing inflexibility in how his product is being presented (if that's a problem) might be playing havoc on what we're seeing on our TV screens.
Looking at just two of the characters, it's plain the fans want Daniel Bryan....and don't want Roman Reigns, at least at the very top of the hierarchy at this point in time.
Is this logical in terms of the "sport" of professional wrestling? Not as far as I'm concerned, it's not. Yet, that's what the crowd wants. It might not be what they want a year from now, but it's what they want now.
I've always had the feeling that while Vince McMahon recognizes the value of pleasing his fans, he's also hardheaded about it, figuring he'll tell the people what they want and expect them to fall in line. Maybe his arteries have hardened sufficiently that he really thinks it will work that way......and perhaps in the 1970's, it did. It's a different world out there, particularly with the development of the Internet.
At the same time, when I read people on this forum complaining that WWE has to listen to their suggestions and give them what they want, the number of opinions that range all over the board preclude this type of input ever coming into play......the company has to come up with the script, adjusting things along the way to at least give a nod to what the fans are obviously telling them.....without sacrificing the integrity of the product to do it.....but not every fan can get what he wants, and if his response to a single instance is to cancel their subscription to the WWE Network, it speaks volumes as to the difficulty in what the company has to deal with.
Is it hard? You bet it is! Especially in view of the sheer number of hours of original programming they have to put on each week, it's as hard to do as anything in media production.
Going after the fans? A certain amount of that is natural; many of them don't follow wrestling closely enough to give realistic and valid opinions.....but when WWE completely ignores fans, they're running a big risk.....and it's important they realize it. How they mitigate the damages will determine how successful they will be in the future.