WWE hates losing money. Not wanting to lose money isn’t exactly unique to any company, but the WWE operates exceptionally under the idea that losing money is the only bad kind of business. That’s why we’ve had to deal with Brock Lesnar bouncing in and out of the Universal title scene for the past – how long has it been now? 50 years? – despite a majority of people not liking this current Brock Lesnar gimmick for reasons that have nothing to do with him being a heel and through no fault of Brock Lesnar’s. Trust me, when the WWE has worn out on the gimmick of Money in the Bank giving wrestlers a future title shot then they will find a way to create a match that grants a wrestler a title shot in a past match that has already happened. Brock Lesnar is already penciled in to win every single one of those matches.
The WWE has always had the business model that money talks; as long as you spend your money on the Network, tickets and merchandise then they have no reason to change anything that they’re doing even if you’re very vocal about not liking it. This is different than most of the other top companies who use good PR and customer experiences as their organic marketing even if it is just a thinly vailed way of pushing for more money.
When Microsoft announced that the Xbox One would always be online and would probably not be taking pictures of your wife naked and sending them around the office, the market pushed back and Microsoft very quickly apologized for their lack of judgment and undid the mess they made. Microsoft projected that the Xbox would sell poorly based on the negative press it was receiving and stayed on top of things the right way. When the WWE shifted the focus from Daniel Bryan to Randy Orton in 2013 and the market pushed back, the WWE quickly apologized and undid their mess. Oh wait, no, I mean they continued to push Randy Orton, added Daniel Bryan to the Wyatt Family feud, and didn’t do shit for 6 months because despite the fans uproar the market didn’t change. Ticket sales and Network buy-ins were steady. The only reason the WWE reacted when they did in 2014 is because we wouldn’t shut up about Daniel Bryan during matches that didn’t involve him.
The WWE doesn’t believe in real PR. The kind of PR where it does something nice just to do something nice. It does charity. Any charity work is still charity work and should never be scoffed at, however, its also the oldest and most transparent trick at marketing in the books. If robots tried to blend in with humans while slowly taking over, the first thing they’d do is charity work. The second thing they’d do is hide inside Bobby Lashley, because seriously, who could tell the difference? It’s important to remind everyone that donating to a charity comes with certain tax benefits.
Two months ago, I created a video using Bray Wyatt’s Muscle Man Dance with the song “Old Town Road” playing instead. I wanted to post it on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube just because it gave me a chuckle and thought it might do the same for others. It really wasn’t a big deal. However, as soon as I hit upload both YouTube and Facebook stopped me. A message informing me that the audio I was about to use violated copyright laws popped up. I was using someone else’s song for about 30 seconds and that goes too far to be considered fair use. I could see that. Wait, no… It wasn’t the song these sites were flagging. I included a less than 4 fucking seconds clip of Bray Wyatt talking and it was the WWE who flagged my video within seconds of it being uploaded.
For those of you who may not know, the WWE is one of the strictest companies when it comes to protecting their copyright. This may mean taking down some illegal streaming sites, illegal merchandise vendors, or harmless parodies. No, no, not that last one. Sorry. I mean perfectly legal reviews. Shit, no, not that either. I mean unrelated clips that do not logically, ethically, and most importantly legally infringe on any of their copyrighted content. You know what, fuck it, let’s just stick with the first two things I said.
The WWE doesn’t give a shit about you or your legal right to use their content under fair use because there’s no money to be made there. In fact, if it was your job to review their shows for some company and you make the mistake of using any of their audio, they will flat out take your money. It doesn’t matter if you have a legal right. Specifically, because if you dare use WWE footage in your YouTube video the WWE loses the fraction of a fraction of a pube hair you were about to earn just doing your job. They will rip that money right out of your account while staring deep into your peasant eyeballs if they need to. Then, they’ll donate it to charity so everyone is happy except you. Lastly, they get a huge portion of that cent back in taxes.
This isn’t sour grapes. This is just an example to point out how the WWE doesn’t care about its current customer base if those people don’t pay them. Yes, “vote with your wallet” is a legit stance to take with any business, but that’s only in the most extreme cases when reasoning with the company doesn’t fucking work. When the WWE was asked not to do business with any governments known to outright murder people for funsies, they covered their eyes with their billions dollars check and pretended that if they can’t see you then they disappear. Like a child. The WWE is run by children. There’s only one thing wrong with a billion-dollar company being ran by children: literally fucking everything.
In case you’re thinking “of course the WWE only cares about the paying customer, that’s how business works,” then I’d like to point out that that’s not
how business works. Non-paying fans are just potential paying customers you haven’t convinced yet. The goal isn’t to just get the paying customers to keep coming back. You’re supposed to get new customers, too, even if those new customers are just people waiting for a reason to pay for things.
When you come out to the ring posing as your real-life corporate positions and tell the entire audience – paying or not – that you’re going to start listening and giving them what they want, you’re telling the audience that pretty soon you’ll be convincing them to pay. Then, you give us Brock Lesnar as Universal part-time champion with the only storyline being “Fuck you WWE Universe, remember when we did this the last dozen times?” Simply apologizing for punching babies in the face and then doing it again and again doesn’t count as being sorry.
Also, here’s the stupid-stupid clip I tried to upload to multiple sites that the WWE felt threatened by:
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