Is Vince trolling the viewers?

[Radical]

I honestly think Vince is purposefully trolling his audience. I think he honestly knows when he is putting absolute garbage segments out there on the big, live Raw show and he LOVES IT.

Why? Because he can!

He can now because he has zero legit competition.

If he tried to do shit like have two hags from a crappy talk show appear, have furry mascots roll around in the ring and have more than 1 useless Divas match back when he was in direct competition with WCW it wouldn't work. All of us would gladly switch over to watch WCW and keep watching that for weeks and go to those shows because we didn't feel insulted and embarrassed.

But now, there is no other wrestling show on Monday and not even a real competition of another wrestling show to watch.

But here is where Vince is trolling on purpose. Look at Raw tonight.

The Good
- Opening Segment with Ambrose, Cena & The Authority setting up the Main Event.
- Opening match. 6-man tag. Former tag champs & IC champ vs current tag champs & IC title contender in a solid match with a memorable triple super kick spot.
- Arguably Swagger vs Tyson Kidd, finally showing Kidd on Raw with some personality and Sheamus vs Miz w Mizdow, clearly starting a feud for the US title, this is "good" if you dig this Superstars and at least it is showcasing the US title.
- Rusev & Lana interrupted by THE ROCK! Legit hilarious remarks by The Rock. Some of the best zingers I've heard him say since the Attitude Era.
- The Main Event, mostly the ending with Ambrose coming out with the Hot Dog cart and the DDT on Cena.

The Bad
- Bella segment. One hand tied behind her back? Ok, but is it really RAW necessary? It would be more than fine on Main Event or SmackDown.
- Bo Dallas vs Mark Henry. To me the build of Bo Dallas has been to slow and to choppy and it makes no sense why Mark Henry didn't beat up Dallas after the match again tonight when he did the other time he lost. Illogical booking/storytelling is bad!

The Ugly
- El Torito vs Mini Gator. Crowd at least chanted "This is stupid!" and hopefully Vince heard that loud and clear
- Hoda & Kathylee. UGH. Saw one second of it and it was one second too long. Sounded like the crowd was actually cheering, I hope I heard wrong and they were mostly booing loud or yelling "This is stupid!" but it sucked.
- Susan G. Komen. Biggest damn scam this side of the Nigerian King and I hope people do not fall for it! Don't donate a PENNY to that corrupt organization. If you want to help breast cancer victims go to the hospital and spend time with them or give money to a University grad student that is actually researching a cure without any greedy motive.



But, what does all this mean? You have more bad and ugly segments than good but dammit, the good segments are GOOD! Watching The Usos, Ziggler, Goldust, etc. and Ambrose and Tyson Kidd, those are segments that remind me why I enjoy watching wrestling and why I'd hate to never watch it again.

However, this is why I think Vince is trolling us. He puts on crap segments because he knows he has actually really good segments to keep 'enough' attention from fans that the bad segments won't push away fans completely. I mean, if WWE had ZERO good segments, then yes, the people would leave fast but he knows he keeps enough actually good stuff so people will watch. Although, he does seem to be almost daring the viewing audience to DVR and watch the show later with fastforward because of how much crap you have to get through.

Do you agree that Vince is trolling the audience on purpose with terrible segments but still having overall some really good segments?

 

[sMark]

I think the reason is more prosaic - Vince doesn't give a damn about quality anymore and simply fill RAWs with what is "good for bussiness".

 

[Zycho32]

Honestly no. I think he'll Troll some major plotlines to get the fans riled, but doing what you're describing? No. Either that's aimed at some demographic you simply do not belong to, or it's a poorly-thought-out yet sincere attempt.

 

[Mustang Sally]

But, what does all this mean?

I don't think "trolling" has anything to do with it. As we constantly read about Vince's temper tantrums and last minute changes to programming, it makes me think he cares very much about putting the highest quality material on the air. Maybe he's right, maybe he's not, but I would think all the employees who are forced to implement his every order would be surprised to hear that some fans think Vince is trolling by intentionally putting junk on the show.

I would think a more reasonable explanation is that there is way too much WWE programming being produced today. Vince realizes that variety is the spice of life and that his audience won't be interested in seeing only straight wrestling matches on their screens week after week.

Different types of stuff is needed, and Vince McMahon provides it. Yes, some is good and some isn't......and, of course, there are fans who are going to detest everything that's new and different, but when there's this much air time to fill, it requires a lot of varied acts to fill it.

Am I interested in two midgets in costume fighting each other? No, not particularly......yet I can appreciate what Vince is trying to do, and try to look it as a piece of the whole picture. That's show business.

 

[MartialHorror]

What made the Wogglegater Vs El Torito match so awful is that they at least put on a good one before. This last RAW match though was...it's like Vince was intent on the Hoda/Kathy Lee segment not being the worst bit on the show...

I'm more confused because it seems like the more relevant storylines have gotten edgier. I mean, look at everything the Rock said about Lana. That was directed towards an older- or at least teenaged audience- who would automatically reject that stupid 'Gator vs Bull' match. Does WWE even know who their target audience is?

The Mizdow chants were great though.

 

[MCMG]

For what's it worth, I'd rather they used time better and gave someone like Sheamus, Ziggler or Cesaro some mic time. Maybe a few extra minutes for Kidd/Swagger but I can understand what they are trying to achieve.

The Gator vs the bull was just a traditional comedy segment. I bet you the kids loved it. The sad thing is that these two actually put on a good match at Extreme Rules but, oh well, swing and a miss. These types of segments give a greater balance to the show but Hornswoggle dressed as a Gator just isn't working. In reality, you need someone like Santino for these types of segments, someone who is naturally funny and can actually hold peoples attention. Of course, even he was overexposed.

Raising awareness for Cancer wasn't a problem for me. Every big company can use charity to further their own cause but the WWE has a great record with going further to help particular causes. There is nothing there.

You can't appreciate the good without the bad, right? Or at least what you and I perceive as bad.

 

[sMark]

I'm more confused because it seems like the more relevant storylines have gotten edgier. I mean, look at everything the Rock said about Lana. That was directed towards an older- or at least teenaged audience- who would automatically reject that stupid 'Gator vs Bull' match. Does WWE even know who their target audience is?

Maybe they try to target every age group they can, or maybe The Rock didn't have a full script promo written for him, because, well, he is The Rock, and made his promo on a fly.

 

[Aeon Mathix]

Sad part is I feel Vince is actually taking every bit of this seriously. It wouldn't surprise me if he thought the bull and gator match was amazing and he probably polished off that wine backstage with those Today Show hosts from last night. Vince does have a reputation for being batshit crazy at times.

The cancer stuff is fine for here and there but good lord I feel like the entire show was overwhelmed with it last night. I don't remember this being this crazy last year when they did this. Besides all it is is WWE wanting to look caring and for people to talk about how what they are doing is amazing. It's all bull and when someone buys a cancer shirt WWE probably only gives like a dime to the charity.

No I don't think Vince is trolling us, I fully believe he knows exactly what he is doing and is damn proud of it might I add. That or 3 hour Raws are a terrible idea and they can't think of anything better to put on than multiple divas matches, all these breast cancer segments, adam rose or bulls and gators. 3 hour raws were a cool idea to me and probably a lot of others at the time, but that was because I gave WWE too much credit and that they would actually use the extra time for good instead of evil.

 

[OYDK]

Vince is an entrepreneurial mogul who has put his entire life into the WWE and creating the best product that he possibly can. The man takes pride in his business, I HIGHLY doubt that Vince is putting shit out there knowing it's shit just to "troll" the fans who keep his company alive. The fact is, these segments that you find so stupid such as the Divas matches and the dwarf wrestling are not catered to hardcore wrestling fans; they're catered to the demographic who IS THEIR TARGET MARKET, PEOPLE: kids.

The kids obviously love watching little people in animal costumes tussle or a giant bunny beat up "tough guys" and you can see why they would find it amusing, for godssakes they're kids. The Diva's are not marketed to the male demographic anymore either... Those Diva's matches are on the show to cater to WWE's female fan base and maisntream fanbase who only tune in to see the stars of Total Divas (if people even do that).

To us wrestling fans, half of these segments are garbage, but Vince knows that there is enough good authentic parts of Raw to keep the IWC fans interested so that he CAN market the rest of the show to the demographic of fans who are not necessarily wrestling fans.

 

[Mudlup50]

I think you're forgetting that the IWC isn't the only demographic for WWE. With no competition they have to appeal to everyone! So the kids can enjoy Mini Gator versus El Torito and the adults can enjoy the Rock return. I think the stupidest part of the female "celebs" was the fact they were selling wine, yet they came out with Adam Rose who clearly has only been targeted towards kids for a while now.

I thought the 6 man tag was stupid, we already saw twice in the last month Usos and Sheamus versus Dusts and Cesaro. Just on Raw. Changing Sheamus into Ziggler doesn't interest me. I know why they do it, but it's stupid. Throw somebody else into a tag team match.

Also AJ walking out on her partner after Cena did it on Smackdown and announcing Dean did it last night...a bit redundant in my opinion.

But overall I thought Raw was okay, it pushed the stories it needed to and had a few moments that will stick with us for a while(Rock return, Dean with a hot dog cart).

 

[Radical]

Vince is an entrepreneurial mogul who has put his entire life into the WWE and creating the best product that he possibly can. The man takes pride in his business, I HIGHLY doubt that Vince is putting shit out there knowing it's shit just to "troll" the fans who keep his company alive. The fact is, these segments that you find so stupid such as the Divas matches and the dwarf wrestling are not catered to hardcore wrestling fans; they're catered to the demographic who IS THEIR TARGET MARKET, PEOPLE: kids.

I grew up in the early 90s and that's when I started watching wrestling at my Grandparent's house and got hooked. I remember being interested in a edgy snake-owning Jake Roberts, the pumped up Ultimate Warrior, the dark and mysterious Undertaker with creepy Paul Bearer, the Big Boss Man, a technical charismatic Hitman Hart and guys like that. I don't remember ONCE seeing something as "kid friendly" as little people in costume and women dancing around and slapping each other for no apparent reason and thinking to myself "Oh, that's hilarious! I want to watch this show more to see more of that!" No, even as a kid, I wanted to see some serious WRESTLING and some serious intense PASSION.

I guess I haven't been a kid in a while but man, you'd think in today's society kids wouldn't care much about that stuff. I don't see how it benefits WWE as a business either. Is there a whole bunch of merchandise related to mascots on WWEShop? Is it selling at any reasonable rate? There doesn't seem to be one ounce of business upside to these segments.

To us wrestling fans, half of these segments are garbage, but Vince knows that there is enough good authentic parts of Raw to keep the IWC fans interested so that he CAN market the rest of the show to the demographic of fans who are not necessarily wrestling fans.

And this is basically my point.

Vince KNOWS there is enough good segments to keep wrestling fans interested so he can still put 2 or 3 absolutely embarrassingly horrible segments on the show and they still make money.

I think he's testing us.

The twisted, screwed up thing is that if we try to show our displeasure with the product by not watching live, not buying the Network or PPVs Vince is going to think it means we don't like guys like Ambrose, Rollins, Ziggler, Cesaro, Usos, Wyatts, etc. because they will be on the card and poor buyrates and network subs will be blamed on them instead of properly blaming it on HORRID "comedy" segments.

 

[OYDK]

I grew up in the early 90s and that's when I started watching wrestling at my Grandparent's house and got hooked. I remember being interested in a edgy snake-owning Jake Roberts, the pumped up Ultimate Warrior, the dark and mysterious Undertaker with creepy Paul Bearer, the Big Boss Man, a technical charismatic Hitman Hart and guys like that. I don't remember ONCE seeing something as "kid friendly" as little people in costume and women dancing around and slapping each other for no apparent reason and thinking to myself "Oh, that's hilarious! I want to watch this show more to see more of that!" No, even as a kid, I wanted to see some serious WRESTLING and some serious intense PASSION.

I guess I haven't been a kid in a while but man, you'd think in today's society kids wouldn't care much about that stuff. I don't see how it benefits WWE as a business either. Is there a whole bunch of merchandise related to mascots on WWEShop? Is it selling at any reasonable rate? There doesn't seem to be one ounce of business upside to these segments.

You have to remember that in the early 90's the WWE had stiff competition, most noticeably from WCW and were running 1 hour events or RAWs per week at the time. Pro wrestling was not yet classified as "Sports Entertainment" either and although the product in the early 90's may have been kid friendly, the WWE had no room or time to showcase little people in costumes or women slapping each other. They needed to showcase their best talent in the time frame they were allotted and let's not forget that the WWF in the early 90's was rather awful and pretty comparable to today's numbers IMO. Let's also not forget that we still have the edgy, pumped up and mysterious wrestlers today, they just go by different names like Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, John Cena, and Seth Rollins instead of Undertaker, Jake Roberts, and Bret Hart.

I get where you're coming from but the point I'm trying to make is those awful segments are catered towards kids and others who are not necessarily diehard wrestling fans. It sucks, but WWE now has the time and inclination to do this, as frustrating as that may be.

And this is basically my point.

Vince KNOWS there is enough good segments to keep wrestling fans interested so he can still put 2 or 3 absolutely embarrassingly horrible segments on the show and they still make money.

I think he's testing us.

The twisted, screwed up thing is that if we try to show our displeasure with the product by not watching live, not buying the Network or PPVs Vince is going to think it means we don't like guys like Ambrose, Rollins, Ziggler, Cesaro, Usos, Wyatts, etc. because they will be on the card and poor buyrates and network subs will be blamed on them instead of properly blaming it on HORRID "comedy" segments.

The gist of what I am saying is that could WWE put on a spectacular, straigt-up, IWC-catered 1 hour RAW today? Absolutely. Could they do the same with a 3 hour RAW? I definitely think so, but WE ARE NOT THE ONLY DEMOGRAPHIC ANYMORE! Matter of fact we're probably lowest on the totem pole in WWE's eyes.

So yes although an hour of RAW may be ridiculously hard for us to endure, it is not meant to punish us or test us or anything. It's simply another way for WWE to try and expand it's fanbase.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

If he tried to do shit like have two hags from a crappy talk show appear, have furry mascots roll around in the ring and have more than 1 useless Divas match back when he was in direct competition with WCW it wouldn't work. All of us would gladly switch over to watch WCW and keep watching that for weeks and go to those shows because we didn't feel insulted and embarrassed.

But now, there is no other wrestling show on Monday and not even a real competition of another wrestling show to watch.

WWF had several shit moments during The Monday Night Wars that a very select few would have thought funny. Tiger Ali Singh paying random women in the audience to do gross things like french his sardine-eating manager Babu comes to mind. Hell misogyny ran rampant back then and I highly doubt anybody would particularly enjoy that now.

Not every segment is going to cater to our age, and not every moment has to be serious. Wrestling has always tossed in joke matches and goofy gimmicks to balance the broodiness. It's not Vince trolling the audience, it's the audience being made up of more than adults wanting violence and Vince realizing that.

 

[Mudlup50]

So the WWE is trolling us now? Yet in the past we had Eugene(a mentally challenged boy), Gobledy Gooker(a giant turkey that came out of an egg), there was even a magician at some point...I mean come on this isn't a new trend.

If 1 new fan starts watching because they enjoyed El Torito versus Mini Gator, it's a success. Because that new fan will watch and eventually cheer for guys like Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Cesaro. Let Vince pander to the kids, it increases the fanbase and those fans turn into us.

 

[Radical]

I know WWE has always had comedy segments but there is a difference between good comedy and awful comedy. WWE does both and can't seem to stop doing the latter.

Maybe I am naive but I think they could have light-hearted segments for kids that wouldn't alienate adults and hardcore fans AS MUCH as some stuff they've done.

WWE had Hugh Jackman on a while back, he did some schtick with Dolph Ziggler and Sandow as Magneto and it was cheesy, sure, but I think everyone could appreciate why it was done.

But on Raw you have to old hags from Today show who have NO interest in WWE taking up valuable time to slap their butts. The crowd DID boo. Clearly, it's a stupid waste of time. If they wanted to promote breast cancer awareness in that segment (more than they were already doing) have freaking Trish Stratus come back or at least some female actress or rock star that actually likes wrestling!

Then they have a mini gator vs a bull in a match that even for their standards wasn't even good! Would have been better if they brought the Muppets back and that had Beeker interfere.

I'm just saying WWE could handle their kid-friendly and guest stars stuff better that wouldn't insult their older fans.

AND what I'm saying is if WWE insists on wasting large amounts of the show on low quality segments then they are DARING their audience to not watch live and to just review it on replays or streaming after, thus not making their rating look good.

 

[kadroan]

No. I just think he's appealing to his audience. Kids love the WWE and I could imagine they love The Bunny, Adam Rose, etc.

I also think he's doing the best he can with what he has. Cena is his money maker, nobody else has stepped up.

 

[GeminiGarlord]

Comedy wrestling should still be... you know... wrestling.

Chikara does it good, honestly they should just there for some pointers. I mean the problem is not that gator vs torito wanted to be comedy, the problem is that it was just... well, not funny. Which honestly annoys me, I actually thought that Slater-Gator had decent comedic potential.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

"he has zero legitimate competition"

Goddamnit. Where does this idea come from? You think USA gives a shit if he beats TNA? His competition is EVERYTHING else on TV. It's not like people go "well, I guess i'm watching pro wrestling....lookie there, WWE is the only thing on". They think "hmmm, wonder what entertains me". Whether that's NFL Monday Night Football, Raw, Hulu, Netflix, or Hulu. WWE has more competition now than they've ever had.


So no, Vince isn't trolling, fans on the internet just take things too serious. Pro wrestling is fun. Goofy segments aren't "bad" (always). Don't act like corny segments are a new thing. The attitude era was full of that. Mae Young birthing a hand, "choppy choppy pee pee", really most mid card segments were extrapolated Jerry Springer episodes. Oh, I guess they cussed and showed boobs so it was "adult"....