Answering your questions; WWE and the Internet
I get asked pretty frequently: Does WWE pay attention to the news, rumors, gossip and feedback on the Internet?
It's a simple, to-the-point answer: You bet your butt they do.
I know because for years, it was my job to compile it.
There were two main reports I'd put together. On a daily basis, I'd compile a "web rumor report," and after the main TV shows (Raw, SmackDown and Pay-Per-Views), I'd compile feedback reports.
I can't speak to how WWE would look upon web news and rumors prior to my time there, but I know that after Owen Hart's death two weeks after I started at the company in 1999, we were asked to compile reports with what fans and sites were saying about the death. They were intrigued by how much was out there and the decision was made to start compiling clips of what they were saying about any and all topics in the industry.
I remember a few weeks later -- on the night that the Greater Power was revealed -- Vince mentioned in a promo in Raw about all the speculation as to who the Greater Power was, naming specific names I knew he'd gotten from our report. That was cool.
I was the young, driven intern at the time, so I was more than happy to put the reports together. On an average day, I'd go to all the big sites -- the Observer, the Torch, 1wrestling, etc -- and anything new and/or relevant would find its way into the report, which could be a page or two, or could be 10 pages, depending on the day. By the time I started at WWE full-time the following May, there were a few dozen people getting the web rumor report, and the readership ballooned to more than 120 within a year and a half of then.
The TV feedback reports started in earnest shortly after WrestleMania XII in 1996. The story, as I've heard it, is that Vince McMahon went up to a guy named Jim Monsees, who was then running WWE's AOL site, at the WrestleMania After Party and asked what fans thought of the show. Jim passed along so much good feedback from the online fans that Vince asked his team to start compiling TV feedback on a regular basis.
I started compiling the TV feedback in 2000 by going through the myriad e-mails we would get after the shows, and also by reading through feedback and comments on a bunch of sites. I'd look for trends in comments, storyline holes, what you guys liked, what you didn't. The reports were fairly comprehensive and oftentimes brutally honest.
During the Invasion storyline in 2001, for example, not a report would go by without an extensive paragraph or two about how the storyline had more holes than a piece of swiss cheese. I'd detail what the problems were, and suggestions on how to fix them.
We were asked to change the format of the fan feedback after a while to a simple number system, whereby we'd take a sampling of 100 e-mails or so, and tally up the comments. Of course, this watered down any actual effective feedback we could offer, since it wasn't at all insightful beyond some numbers from a very small sampling. This directive came in early 2002 or so, by which point the product had been heading downhill for a year, so my guess is that it made it easier to digest the bad feedback, to make it seem like fans liked the shows more than they actually did.
Around that time, though, we started also doing a separate e-mail with staff feedback and ideas, whereby the publications and dotcom staff would offer up more insightful analysis and thoughts (creative didn't use storyline ideas from fans -- legal reasons I believe -- but employees were encouraged to send in ideas all the time. So we did).
These e-mails -- which were in large part my ideas and those of just a handful of others -- became one of the driving forces behind them asking me to join creative later that year.
For a long while, the reports would go out by e-mail to about 100 people companywide, including creative and all top executives. By early- to mid-2002, we were asked to only send the reports to a much smaller group of core company employees -- mostly creative and top executives.
But the reports were very much in demand. I'd be at work at around 8 to make sure that they were in people's inboxes between 9 and 9:15, or we'd start getting calls asking if the report was ready. I knew of more than one person on the fourth floor of Titan Tower (where the executive offices were) who couldn't drink their morning coffee without the web rumor report, some who even spend all morning on them, rather than do any actual work.
I should point out the fact that WWE wasn't at all strange or weird for doing this -- most large companies do make it standard policy to patrol the Internet and print media for the latest industry news and to follow what's said about their brand. But obviously what's being written and said about wrestling is a little more interesting than what's said about Home Depot or Coca-Cola.
It cracked me up too -- the people on the fourth floor would compile a print clip file of WWE's mentions in local newspapers and national magazines (most of which was places re-writing WWE's own press releases -- blah), a virtual snoozefest compared to my findings from the Observer and the Torch.
So ya, besides getting paid to watch wrestling, write about wrestling and travel to the shows, part of my job was also reading all the dirtsheet sites.
Nice work if you can get it (though I still wouldn't wish working at that place on my worst enemy).
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Comments (18)
That's what I call a dream job.
Presumably you would have to sanitise some of the things, Seth. For instance, the Randy Savage rumours or people jumping on how Vince leers at Steph on screen, suggesting that there was a little more to their relationship (especially as there was a storyline sentence where Steph said that Vince used to pimp her).
Were there any news items that you felt it a clear part of your job to omit or reword?
It is interesting, because the IWC generally has a different opinion to the more casual fan. Would they actually make changes that you see suggested from the IWC, or would they stay on their own path, or perhaps would they make changes that were also in line with their own thinking?
I ask because I bet there was loads of people in 2002/2003 moaning that HHH only had the title because he was married to Steph, and there's probably still loads of people that moan about the 'superman' push Cena gets, but yet they pursist. However they clearly made an effort to improve the million dollar segments last Monday for example, and would no doubt have looked at some fan feedback for that.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, how do they seperate 'markish' feedback and feedback that they can actually use that is constructive?
Ronnie, the main thing that jumps to mind is Stephanie McMahon's insanely stupid comments on the 9/11 show, comparing the terrorist attacks to when her dad was on trial for steroids.
I went to my boss to ask how to handle it (since 9 out of every 10 emails we got the next day were about what an idiot she made of herself on that show), and for that show only, we only sent our feedback to the McMahons themselves, with a very politically written paragraph about how "uncomfortable" (or a word to that effect) fans were with her comments. Though it was written in a political way, it definitely conveyed how angry fans were -- and you guys were ANGRY !!!
Other than that, we didn't do much censoring. We might have cleaned things up a little to make them more digestable, but my mentality was always, why bother preparing fan feedback if we're not gonna get to the heart and soul of matters?
WWEisright, I don't think they ever looked at the feedback and made changes just because of what was said there. In fact, I would hope they didn't. The feedback was more an instant reaction type thing, which they also weighed against live fan reaction, feedback from the agents backstage, and other factors.
I stopped doing the feedback reports in July 2002 when I joined creative. Triple H's nepo-push had gotten bad by then, but wasn't as bad as it would get, so I can't totally speak to how that was handled in the reports. And like I said, in the spring of 2002 or so, they asked us to completely changed the format of the reports to effectively water them down, where instead of insightful anaylsis, they'd look like this:
8 fans enjoyed the Matt Hardy match
4 fans liked Trish's ring outfit
7 fans wish Booker T had won the title
And so forth. You see, they were working their own feedback report! They knew how bad the feedback was getting so they had us change things up so it would look better than it actually was.
Though I will say this -- during that horrible, horrible, horrible Triple H/Stephanie divorce storyline in early 2002, not a report went by when we wouldn't mention the feedback about how terrible it was, to the point of making fans -- and making US GETTING PAID TO WATCH THE SHOWS!!! -- want to change the channel.
Honesty is the best policy, always. Maybe THAT'S why I always had so much heat!
"Though I will say this -- during that horrible, horrible, horrible Triple H/Stephanie divorce storyline in early 2002, not a report went by when we wouldn't mention the feedback about how terrible it was, to the point of making fans -- and making US GETTING PAID TO WATCH THE SHOWS!!! -- want to change the channel"
Is that why the storyline only lasted 3-4 weeks? They broke up in Feb. 2002, HHH tortured and mocked her for a few weeks, Stephanie was forced to leave in March (and was not on TV at all for the next 4 months), and when Stephanie came back in July as GM of Smackdown, they immediately got "divorced" (Eric Bischoff thought HHH was meeting with Steph to stay on Smackdown when Bischoff wanted HHH on RAW, but they were actually finalizing their divorce).
Thanks Seth. It was MY job as an intern in corporate communications to compile the BORING list. While you got to read about the product, I had to sift through articles about the World Wildlife Fund beating the crap out of us in court and reading the ranting of the head of ParentsTV.org run our product through the ringer (sometimes deservedly so) including the "heinous act of endorsing a homosexual marriage." You sinner.....
Seth describe the heat you had on you and why you wouldnt wish working at WWE on your worst enemy? There has to be a story or 5 there.
Seth describe the heat you had on you and why you wouldnt wish working at WWE on your worst enemy? There has to be a story or 5 there.
Seth describe the heat you had on you and why you wouldnt wish working at WWE on your worst enemy? There has to be a story or 5 there.
Seth describe the heat you had on you and why you wouldnt wish working at WWE on your worst enemy? There has to be a story or 5 there.
Sorry for the rediculous repetition.
Seth describe the heat you had on you and why you wouldnt wish working at WWE on your worst enemy? There has to be a story or 5 there.
Seth, I think Kevin really wants you to describe the heat you had on you and why you wouldn't wish working there on your worst enemy.
I screwed up I admit it... but it would be cool for you to mention it lol.
Seth describe the heat you had on you and why you wouldn't wish working at WWE on your worst enemy? There has to be at least one relatively boring story there
I don't blame Seth for dodging that one. I'm scared of Vince too and I live in Toronto.
I wanna work for Jack Tunney in the 80's
Yeah, I kinda noticed that WWE really knows how 'smart' the fans were, and what they say esp. the dirtsheet writers and the smarky smart fans. I also liked how starting in 2006 or so WWE started acknowledging those smarky fans or just wanted to poke fun at them becoz WWE knows what theyre all saying. Like when TripleH and Shawn as DX has this promo about Stephanie giving birth and Trips saying that guy who impegrenated her must be loaded etc. etc of course an average mark fan wouldnt get it, joke or not but the one who knows about the real situation would just sneer and maybe laugh. And Seth, do you think that with the recent Vince accident on Raw when Vince called Hunter Paul, was it done to swerve the internet fans who really knew Triple H's real name, by calling out for him "PAUL?" to make it look real. I think WWE swerves the internet fans more so now these days.