One of the most dangerous emotions a business can instill in their customers is apathy. For a perfect example of how it pertains to wrestling, lets examine the Daniel Bryan pandemic from 2014 as opposed to 2015. In 2014, the fans propelled Bryan to the main event of WrestleMania through sheer force of will, kickstarting a movement that caused WWE to open their eyes and push the Washingtonian for all he was worth. The following year began with the same dichotomy, but WWE resisted repeating history this time potentially for the best considering Bryans health and the build for this years big show was met with an alarming amount of disinterest from the fans. Thats not to say that WrestleMania 31 wasnt a success, but heading into it all signs pointed to an audience who wasnt interested in buying what WWE was selling, and ratings and crowd reactions reflected that. If you want to stir up some passion in your fans, dont hammer them over the head with massive amounts of content. Game of Thrones just ended after an agonizingly brief ten episode season and already fans are chomping at the bit for the shows return nearly a year from now. Meanwhile theres no sense of urgency to anything WWE does because if you miss an episode of Raw, not only will you get another one every single week that follows from now until the end of existence, but youll also be battered with a near-infinite amount of recaps and rehashing. Its just not good for the product.
Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
