2. Paying More Attention To Outside Causes Than What's Happening In The Promotion
Remember when the wrestling shows used to be at least filled with an attempt at wrestling? Now we have commercials for WWE Film projects (The Miz stars in a Christmas movie!), month-long preaching sessions about how CANCER IS BAD (Really? Thanks for letting me know.), and commercials for the WWE App so you can watch other stuff while you're supposed to be watching the show. Hey, I don't even have an issue with them donating money to cancer research or helping sick kids or whatever. But dedicating 10 minutes of the show to talking about how COURAGEOUS they are or doing it is where I draw the line. Using charity as a PR opportunity to sell t-shirts (a portion of the profits goes to the crooked cancer "foundation", you know!) is just the kind of low-brow behavior that WWE desperately wants the mainstream media to believe they don't engage in any longer. Me reading about John Cena driving a hummer full of toys bought with his own money to a hospital full of sick kids makes me respect him all the more as a person. WWE producing a video package about how they did a press conference to promote their corporate-branded Be A Star anti-bullying initiative and then airing it on all their shows for two weeks straight makes me think they're a bunch of jerkwads. Subtle difference, but it's there if you look closely. Also, after investing millions of dollars in Tout and promoting it on their shows for months, approximately zero people in the world use Tout now. Awesome forecasting there, geniuses.