WWE is an ever-changing beast that has gone through several phases throughout the years. The company used to dictate who fans should cheer for and who to boo, but that is no longer the case in the modern era.
Triple H spoke to Inside The Ropes, where he discussed fans’ freedom in expressing their views on WWE Superstars. The company does not add artificial crowd noise as they are free to cheer or boo whoever they want to. Due to the advent of social media, fans have become a part of the product in a way that was not possible in the past.
“The world now, and I think this is social media, make it okay to express what you want to express. If you go back to the 80’s and you were a WWF fan then, you didn’t want to say ‘I don’t like [Hulk] Hogan’, but you didn’t want to say it too loud because everybody else liked Hogan and you didn’t want to be the one guy who didn’t. Now I think it’s just that everybody has an opinion, everybody. No matter what you say it’s wrong to somebody, no matter what you do it’s wrong to somebody, everybody has an opinion, but you can’t dictate now.
You create a character that everybody is supposed to dislike but there’s a large portion of them that like that. Then when you create a character that everybody is supposed to like there’s a large portion of them that dislike that. If you tried hard to flip them, and I know everyone is going to say Roman [Reigns], there’s something to all that. Look at [Tommaso] Ciampa, it’s a unique thing and for whatever reason, it’s happened, it just is. But that’s a more difficult thing now than it’s ever been to come up with a universal [baby face or heel].”
Wrestling fans have always been critical to the company, now even more so due to the COVID-19 outbreak which has plagued the world. There is no live audience in attendance due to the disease, but they will be back eventually.
