7 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (April 9)

2. A ‘Non-Traditional Audience’

WWE knows that they have some of its most diehard fans in attendance at the Raw after WrestleMania. Fans have “hijacked” the show in years past, turning it on its head. You can’t just run a regular Raw and expect to get away with it.

Rather than simply roll with it, WWE has taken the approach the past couple years to half-roll with it, and then also dismiss the audience with some backhanded comments. Michael Cole called them a “non-traditional audience,” impassioned members of the fanbase. Coach chimed in that they were international fans who were vocal and wanted to “exercise their freedom of expression.” And Corey Graves warned that it’s Bizarro World, where they boo who they’d normally cheer and vice-versa.

Seriously WWE? You have your most dedicated, vocal, diehard fans and that’s how you describe them? Maybe Vince McMahon should have walked into the audience, dropped his pants and mooned them.

It’s just a dumb way to blow off the fans and their reactions as not being relevant or counting, when these are the fans who buy tickets, buy merchandise and have WWE Network subscriptions. If anything, these are the fans you should be working to impress.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.