5 Worst Examples Of WWE Manipulation

Screwing with reality to satisfy Vince’s ego.

Crowd Cheers Vince
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WWE was once described by Hardcore Holly as, “pulling together a Hollywood movie in one night instead of over several months”, which is a fairly accurate description of the company. Everything they do has to be perfect, from the time cues, to the camera angles, to the match length. The shows are so heavily scripted that even the most insignificant of details are pre-determined and carefully organized.

However, sometimes, this can turn into a case of too much control. Vince and the other powers that be want to control everything in WWE, but there’s one thing that they will never be able to fully control: the fans. No matter how much they might want to convince them to react to a certain Superstar in a certain way, there will always be people who go against what WWE tries to force them to do. That is, after all, the essence of free will.

Recently, WWE has started going crazy with trying to control fans, and many have started voicing their disappointment at what WWE personnel and security have been doing. This article will highlight five examples of WWE manipulating what’s seen and heard in arenas, in order to create a skewed perspective on what really happens live on RAW.

5. Changing History

Crowd Cheers Vince
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More a creative problem, WWE likes to pretend that certain things in WWE history didn’t happen because doing so fits the narrative of the day. It also leads to some of the laziest booking in recent memory, because it’s easier to re-hash a storyline than creating a new one. WWE does this a lot; they present repetitive feuds as new and exciting by pretending that events that happened a month ago didn’t happen.

We all remember Big Show crying as he was forced to knock Dusty Rhodes out under the order of the Authority, yet now we’re supposed to believe that Big Show is loyal to the Authority because…well, just because. We’re also told that Dean Ambrose was the man who spent the longest time in the 2014 Royal Rumble match instead of CM Punk because of Punk’s controversial departure from WWE.

We’re also supposed to believe that John Cena vs. Randy Orton is a fresh and interesting feud, as is Big Show vs. Roman Reigns. Finally, WWE expects fans to believe Kane is still a threat, despite going on one of the worst losing streaks in recent memory, by pretending that all of that never happened. And of course, we were supposed to believe that Tensai was a completely different person from Prince Albert and A-Train.

WWE wants to pretend that they can make weird creative changes out of nowhere and fans will follow along blindly. But wrestling fans aren’t stupid; it’s easy to see an obvious attempt at re-writing history to fit one’s own ego, and sweep certain things under the rug. That’s why fans keep chanting certain names, and why they aren’t likely to go away anytime soon.

Contributor

Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.