WWE Executives Paul Levesque and Nick Khan both recently spoke out about the pitfalls of relying on online reaction to direct their on screen product. Levesque appeared on Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant podcast and stated the following:
"Here’s the beautiful thing about our world: The internet is not real life. And the bitching and the f*cking complaining that is on there is not real life. You could read the internet and it’ll sound like this thing is dead."
"I’ll use Cody as the example. 'Cody’s already jumped the shark, he’s dead as a babyface.' Really? I don’t know. I’m in an arena with 10-15,000 people every night going apeshit for me, selling the most merchandise. But sure, whatever you want to say on the internet, that’s the golden rule."
Last week, Khan was even more direct saying that while the company listens to their audience, they won't respond to activity on social media:
"As much as we listen to our audience, we won’t listen to social media and respond. We think it’s a small percentage of voices who have a big microphone or megaphone in front of them. It’s a mistake to respond to your business based off of that. You’ve got to base it off your gut and the results."
