Do Fans Honestly Suck Today?

[George Steele's Barber]

Everyone is probably to blame.

I'm guessing that the average age of the crowds have gotten younger over the past 10 years. Young kids lack understanding have softer voices and come with apathetic and protective parents. On top of that the AE was a celebration of WWE's struggle against WCW. That bond with the company and product got the most die- hard fans that much more excited. That bond died with WCW's death.

The bookers and writers are to blame for a creating a lesser product. Storylines and gimmicks don't seem to connect as well today.

Production may not being doing as good of a job with pyro and music (I really like the song Cult of Personality but it doesn't get my blood boiling with the initial riff).

And finally the wrestlers just don't connect as well with the audience. I think more catch phrases would help but there are plenty of ways of getting over but guys are failing to do it.

But regardless of all that, if you 'What?' The Undertaker, YOU SUCK!

 

[DirtyD79]

Speaking of Crowd reactions i thought Cenas return to Rap gimmick on Monday drew little response, granted not once during that whole promo did we hear many boos and not one Cena Sucks chant, but there was no roof blown off reaction.

I put some of the blame on Superstars not connecting with the Audience and getting them involved. Rock has Finally, the rock.... and if ya smell where they would chant along, plus they would always scream Rocky Rocky Rocky

SCSA had Gimme a hell yeah, WHAT!, Austin 3:16 says

These days weve got what, Woo Woo Woo. I just think they would get bigger responses from the crowd if they got to participate.

Yep crowd participation is a large part of what makes the show entertaining. It's wrestling not a senate budget hearing. It just seems like among the smarks it's no longer cool to root for the wrestlers you like or have fun lest you be labled a mark.

Personally I'd rather be around the drunken rednecks from ECW who chanted stuff like "show your tits" and "you fucked up" or the "ignorant" "disrespectful" ones going "What?!" at The Undertaker than the serious business smarks who sit on their hands with stop watches and notebooks jotting down matchtimes, because at least the ignorant disrespectful drunken rednecks are having fun and enjoying themselves. Bring out the dueling chants too.

Disrespectful? Look, at the end of the day we're watching a grown man who dresses up like Fester Addams getting ready to fight with another grown man who's claim to fame is pointing at his crotch and saying "Suck it!" After that we;re going to listen to a movie star sing dick jokes about a rapper who tells poop jokes.

 

[jason420]

This is a side-effect of the product as a whole being a watered down boring suck-fest.

Sometimes we get great things like the Summer of Punk, Christian's World title win, The Rock's return, etc.

But most of the time, we get boring crap like the John Cena vs. Kane or the even worse Randy Orton vs. Kane feud.

The writing sucks and the fans are getting used to just not caring. Unless the writing changes, the reactions won't get any better than that.

Agreed!

I might add to that the fact that back when WWE superstars were getting "POPS" was a time when WWE actually listened to their fans about who should get pushes.

In the last ten years I feel like the WWE has tried to SHOVE who THEY think ought to be superstars down my throat and that ALONE makes me less a fan. I think Cena sucks, I think Orton's a snore etc. These guys are not superstars the likes of Stone Cold or Rock. They're just management's favorites and management no longer cares what I think (that's why they haven't recieved a dime from me in ten years).

The fans don't suck. The company sucks.

 

[PunkIsGod]

The fans do suck. I´m a fan and i suck. But why?
I watch RAW and usually, i watch it while doing other things. There are segments in which i pay all my attention. This week, Cena rap, HBK-Taker segment and Rock concert for a few minutes.
Why?
Well that´s because i know Sheamus and Ziggler are gonna have a great match, but Sheamus will win or he will lose due to Bryan interference.
It´s predictable. So, when i´m with the crowd, i´d rather talk with friends or look at the rest of the audience, look at signs and t-shirts, becacause i don´t care about the Randy Orton match. It will be a less 5 minutes match that will end with Kane attacking him. It could end with a chokeslam or with an RKO. but i don´t care as a fan because i know Orton will win at Mania.

The fans need to be excited, with good matches, with good stories, with good characters that you can relate to,or recognize someone you know in a wrestler.

 

[Shotaro]

Yes they do, but then the product isn't as good as it once was either, the storylines don't go anywhere, the biggest thing to happen in wrestling since Austin 3:16 happened in June, it was everywhere, and the WWE let it fizzle out, they involved too many people, they had it right up until Kevin Nash got his charisma less ass involved with HHH na dPunk became the third wheel. It was nWo booking, the WWE killed Punk's and their own momentum dead, ratings then were up for the first time in months, people cared, and HHH and Nash ruined it. I could wax lyrical about what they coulda/shoulda done instead, but it's pointless, as ECW fans would say "you fucked up"

The WWE needs to be relevant again in order to get those reactions, you can also bet your ass that people need to stop watching a live show like they are watching at home. I can believe people timing matches in their heads. If you can't not be a smark, get drunk, if that doesn't help, don't go see wrestling live, because you'll fuck it up for the rest of us. I say that because if someone randomly tuned into Raw one Monday night and heard what amounts to a wet fart when the WWE champion enters, do you think they're going to hang around?

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Do fans in general suck? I'd have to say no. Whenever I tune in to Raw or SD!, they're usually playing before a live crowd that's definitely digging the product. Some crowds are hotter than others, of course, but WWE does a consistent job of putting on an entertaining product in my view. Obviously, the considerable majority of the WWE viewers tend to enjoy what they're seeing, otherwise Raw & SD! wouldn't be among the top drawing shows on cable television. While most fans do journey onto the internet, most of them aren't of the IWC. The WWE's audience as a whole seems to be entertained week in and week out. Sure, there are going to be things that are booked that some of them don't care about. There are going to be happenings that they just flat out like better than others. That's just how the mop flops.

Now if you're asking if internet fans suck, the answer is certainly closer to yes. Not all internet fans are douche bags but there are definitely a healthy number of them that are. As a whole, the IWC gives itself far too much credit as to what the standard is for good and bad in pro wrestling. I can't count the number of posts I've read in which a net fan criticizes WWE for one thing or another while saying what they'd have done or what should have been done. There are way too many internet fans that view themselves as armchair bookers that believe they have some sort of special knowledge or insight that nobody else has, including people who have been involved in pro wrestling since many of the said armchair bookers were in diapers. Usually, those fans will hate on anything that doesn't fit in with their ideal scenarios perfectly, which is one reason why you see so much constant complaining that's attributed to the IWC as a whole. You've got fans that also claim to crave unpredictability, yet complain every bit as much when they get it. Again, the vast majority of those net fans seem to only encourage unpredictability if it's something that happens to be one of their fantasized booking scenarios. Then, you've got the fans that just seem to watch just for the sheer sake of pissing and moaning about how they thought the show was awful. If that wasn't so pitiful, it'd be funny. As a whole, the IWC seems to have very unreasonable and unrealistic standards. Every match has to have a massive wow factor, every promo has to have people jumping up and down in their seats, every feud has to have the feeling of a clash of titans, etc. and it's just not possible.

I can understand if some people have grown disinterested in the product. As people have grown older, tastes have changed as they always do from movies to music to television viewership to political views to whatever. At the same time, I do think a lot of people let nostalgia cloud their memories to some degree, letting them look back on some things as being better than what they actually were. We get a lot of that on the forums regarding the Attitude Era. While there was some fun and memorable moments that happened, these nostalgiaholics tend to talk about only the good and use that as a means of saying that everything else that went on during that period was good as well. The truth is, however, there was also a lot of crap that came about during the Attitude Era. The AE was a fad that saw wrestling portrayed in a different light with different characters. That doesn't mean that every wrestler was a mega star, every feud an epic encounter, every promo was solid gold or every match was an unforgettable classic by any stretch. The same goes for wrestling even back further, such as when Hogan, Savage & Flair were ruling the roost during the 80s. There are angles & storylines 15 years ago that were good but just might not work today. As a whole, most television programming isn't as "innovative" and controversial now as it was back in the late 90s.

 

[theBec2101]

i would have to say it is a a little of both. Yes fans arent the same but neither is the product they have out these days. I cant remember the lst time I geeked out over an entrace, promo, a fued, or an outcome of a match in this era. Im not saying I never was excitied about something in this generation.
Then there are the fans. Some places just suck more then others. Canada fans to seem to get into the show unless one of there own appears, its always been like that. It seems now people only cheer for hometown favorits. In this era, era of the little kid gereration, they can only cheer so loud.

 

[ocekit]

Yep crowd participation is a large part of what makes the show entertaining. It's wrestling not a senate budget hearing. It just seems like among the smarks it's no longer cool to root for the wrestlers you like or have fun lest you be labled a mark.

Personally I'd rather be around the drunken rednecks from ECW who chanted stuff like "show your tits" and "you fucked up" or the "ignorant" "disrespectful" ones going "What?!" at The Undertaker than the serious business smarks...Bring out the dueling chants too.

Disrespectful? Look, at the end of the day we're watching a grown man who dresses up like Fester Addams getting ready to fight with another grown man who's claim to fame is pointing at his crotch and saying "Suck it!" After that we;re going to listen to a movie star sing dick jokes about a rapper who tells poop jokes.

I was at the show in Minneapolis where people were "What"-ing the Undertaker, and to be honest, it wasn't all that surprising. A lot of people were bored during his speech and they gave themselves something to do.

We all knew that Taker would be giving another long-winded speech about how he wanted to fight HHH and blahblahblah, which we'd been getting for a while. It wasn't until we finally got some conflict and a new dimension to the feud that things finally got interesting.

As far as disrespectful, let's be serious. Fans are a lot more respectful than they used to be and that might actually be part of the issue. It used to be that people would chant things like "Die Rocky Die," would throw things at wrestlers' heads, would say whatever they wanted because they didn't care about hurting anyone's feelings or issues of respect. These were rowdy fans who genuinely wished harm on wrestlers and were happy when people were injured.

That being said, fans do not suck. If you're looking for certain reactions from fans, it is your job as a company and as entertainers to pull that reaction from them. It is easy to get attention, it's a lot harder to get audiences to genuinely care enough to react.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Nothing to do with a watered down product or "rasslin just not being the same anymore". It's the fanbase demographic.

In the tude era, the fans were teens and young adults who were drunk. Go to a chiefs game, drunk rednecks/white trash are incredibly loud.

Also, it's harder to get a pop when you can't resort to cheap thrills like titties, blood, and beer.

One more thing, and I'm not sure what their exact schedule was like, but today you'll see like 2 hours of wrestling before Raw even starts. So I'm sure a lot of it is that the crowd is exhausted.

 

[Last Outlaw]

It has a lot to do with both the product and the demographics they're aiming at. There tend to be more kids in the audience as opposed to rowdy teens and adults during the AE which is where the earth-shattering pops generally took place. The product is undoubtedly worse than it was years ago which set the standards too high so it is harder to really pop for something that you don't appreciate or enjoy as much. This, however, only applies to older fans (20+) that witnessed the wrestling boom of the late 90s and to a lesser extent the early 00s (not a boom period but much better than today).

That said, some crowds are definitely entertaining such as NYC, Chicago and Philly which are great wrestling towns and tend to have more smarks than usual. MITB 2011 was a very smarky crowd; you could tell not only in the Cena vs Punk bout but also in the Christian vs Orton match as Christian had a good number of fans cheering for him throughout the match despite Orton being the #2 most over face in the company at the time. Survivor Series 2011 at MSG reminded me of an AE atmosphere with an electric crowd especially during the Rock/Cena vs Awesome Truth tag match. As for the crowd at Minny, I found it to be pretty disrespectful and ignorant but I can't say I'd have the same perspective on the situation had I been in the crowd. If you paid for the show, find the promo boring and want to be entertained and if chanting WHAT is just the thing to liven up the atmosphere, then go ahead and do so. The ECW crowds at ONS 2005 and 2006 were tremendous, rowdy and that added so much to the matches as it upped the atmosphere. Big fan of lively crowds.

 

[RealGardenStateSaint]

I wish I had the time to read this entire thread because I love the question that is posed but by and large I do think most fans suck nowadays. Cynical attitudes seem to reign supreme and the whole mentality of the arm chair quarterback has become quite ridiculous. I even find that more and more wrestling fans use wrestling lingo incorrectly and then that seems to spread like nobody's business.

I gotta remind myself to check this thread again later.