WWE President Nick Khan is making it clear that the company isn’t in the business of reacting to online noise.
Even when the conversation gets loud.
While speaking with Sports Business Journal (see video below), Khan was asked how much fan backlash it would take for WWE to pivot creative direction. His response framed the company’s decision-making around performance metrics rather than social media sentiment.
“We will never respond to social media criticism,” Khan bluntly stated. “Again, if ratings are down, if revenue is down, if relevancy is down, it’s up to us.”
In other words, WWE is looking at the numbers, not Twitter reactions, when determining whether something is working or not.
Khan also revisited one of the most heavily debated creative stretches in recent memory: WrestleMania 40. When The Rock entered the main event picture opposite Roman Reigns, many fans believed WWE altered its original plans in response to the viral “#WeWantCody” movement, which pushed for Cody Rhodes to finish his story.
That theory, however, doesn’t line up with Khan’s version of events.
“The plan was always how it ended up in Philly two years ago,” he said.
According to Khan, WWE intentionally let speculation run wild while sticking to its long-term direction behind the scenes.
“Sometimes it’s a predetermined outcome in wrestling,” Khan continued. “You want to throw the fans off. You want to let things bake and then boom, it ends up the way that we wanted it to end up. It never changed. That was just online rumors and gossip that we were changing.”
