I'll never understand this attitude that you can ignore your live crowds.

 

And as far as what JVK said, I wouldn't completely disregard house show reactions and merchandise sales over the grumblings of TV and PPV crowds. Why would you fire a guy who gets great reactions on house shows (audiences of mostly families) and is in the top 3 of merchandise sales? The WWE audience is not one unified group who all act the same and spend their money the same way. Being hated by the hardcore crowd didn't seem to do much damage to Cena's ability to sell merchandise and tickets.

Because it's terrible -- not to mention embarrassing -- to see your top babyface booed on international TV watched by millions of people world-wide, and on your biggest shows? Imagine if Bruno or Hogan or Austin had come out of choruses of boos every week.

 

Disregarding the boos is just plain bad, whichever way you slice it. And it's not just the live crowd. It's twitter. The whole shebang.

 

Kids aren't blind or deaf. They can see their guy getting booed. Is it okay for a generation of kids to grow up with their babyface heroes hated by the crowd? It's so counter-intuitive and stupid.

Question: Could they pull off a turn with Reigns that keeps him babyface with the casual fans, but a heel for the smart fans? Like Bret Hart with domestic versus international audiences? Could it work?

 

I don't know how you'd do it, but they've got to address it at some point. The Rumble crowd, loudly and clearly, pronounced their allegiance to the Authority (they popped for Vince, and they cheered Hunter even after he took out Ambrose and Ziggler).

Kids aren't blind or deaf. They can see their guy getting booed. Is it okay for a generation of kids to grow up with their babyface heroes hated by the crowd? It's so counter-intuitive and stupid.

It didn't seem to hurt John Cena's popularity with kids at all so I'm not thinking it's a huge deal. We already HAD a generation of kids that grew up that way.

 

Disregarding the boos is just plain bad, whichever way you slice it. And it's not just the live crowd. It's twitter. The whole shebang.

 

Kids aren't blind or deaf. They can see their guy getting booed. Is it okay for a generation of kids to grow up with their babyface heroes hated by the crowd? It's so counter-intuitive and stupid.

It didn't seem to hurt John Cena's popularity with kids at all so I'm not thinking it's a huge deal.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree. I think it's awful to see top babyfaces booed.

 

It was bad with Cena. It is even worse with Roman.

 

Also, action figure sales need to be taken with a pince of salt. I wonder how many IRS figures were sold back in 1991. Kids buy action figures, of heels, of faces, of whoever. It doesn't mean anything really.

 

How many kids in the 1980s owned this guy:

 

 

Basically everyone I knew.

 

Who was he? Do you remember him from the cartoon? Was he everyone's hero? I don't think you can draw many conclusions from merch.

NXT has no problem booking a clear heel/babyface dynamic so it's not like the company can't do it.

Why in your mind are you equating merchandise sales to action figures instead of T-SHIRTS?

Because kids are known for buying action figures.

 

It is teenagers who are more known for buying t-shirts, that's why.

I know you don't watch WWE regularly but you must not have watched it at all in the past 10 years if you're going to act like you've never seen a kid all decked out in full John Cena gear.

http://shop.wwe.com/Roman-Reigns/roman-reigns,default,sc.html

 

This Reigns stuff doesn't look very kiddie either.

http://shop.wwe.com/Roman-Reigns/roman-reigns,default,sc.html

 

This Reigns stuff doesn't look very kiddie either.

I'm not sure where I said he was only over with kids though. He's popular with women and believe it not even some grown men. Everything I ever read about merchandise sales says that his stuff sells. And that he's either the most over or 2nd most over guy on house shows (outside of the UK)

Maybe it sells because it looks cool and not because he's over.

I mean most of those t-shirts and hoodies you wouldn't know had anything to do with wrestling.

Maybe it sells because it looks cool and not because he's over.

John Cena reactions were something that were unique and contributed to his aura, but using that as a template for how to build top babyfaces moving forward is an awful idea.

 

Hey, I'm a generic teenager. Don't really care about Roman Reigns, or who he is, but this t-shirt goes with my tatoos and fashion sense.

So Roman Reigns only sells merchandise to non-fans at Hot Topic and no one is buying it off of the WWE Shop or at live events? Breaking news from JerryvonKramer

At the last house show I went to, the place was full of kids wearing Reigns' t-shirts and gloves cheering him. I was sitting behind a kid who spent the whole event talking about how much he wanted to see Reigns do the Superman punch.

 

It was Reigns' first visit to Spain as a top babyface and the only exposition most of the crowd had was seeing him booed on TV. The kids still loved him.

I don't feel like most people have faced the truth yet that unless you have a positive difference maker like The Rock or John Cena around, business is going to be the same no matter who is on top from the full-time crew. WWE isn't going to go out of business if they put AJ Styles or Heath Slater on top, nor am I sure there's going to be a huge difference in Network subs or house show business between them and someone like Roman Reigns. They've succeeded in making almost everyone interchangeable. Reigns just has teacher's pet status, which makes people mad because they want WWE to be a meritocracy based on match quality. At one time going that route would have been a path to extinction. Now, I don't think it makes a difference either way.

I'm just saying that the sales of his merch might have more to do with the fact that it is vaguely "on trend" as opposed to anything to do with Reigns being over.

 

It's a far cry from being a Hulkamaniac loud and proud.

 

They aren't really saying "I'm a Roman Reigns fan".

 

Nothing quite says "I'm a Reigns mark" like wearing his sub-metal iconography.

 

I don't feel like most people have faced the truth yet that unless you have a positive difference maker like The Rock or John Cena around, business is going to be the same no matter who is on top from the full-time crew. WWE isn't going to go out of business if they put AJ Styles or Heath Slater on top, nor am I sure there's going to be a huge difference in Network subs or house show business between them and someone like Roman Reigns. They've succeeded in making almost everyone interchangeable. Reigns just has teacher's pet status, which makes people mad because they want WWE to be a meritocracy based on match quality. At one time going that route would have been a path to extinction. Now, I don't think it makes a difference either way.

But this is the part that I really DON'T understand. Because he was one of the top 3 best guys in WWE in 2015. Way better than guys with more "smark cred" like Ambrose or Ziggler.

He absolutely was. But he won the Royal Rumble instead of Daniel Bryan, which is completely unforgivable. It's still being held against him.

I'm just saying that the sales of his merch might have more to do with the fact that it is vaguely "on trend" as opposed to anything to do with Reigns being over.

I get it. You've staked your claim and will now go to the ends of the earth to defend it. The reactions at TLC or Raw when he won the title didn't happen because you didn't see them. And there aren't any fans buying his merchandise because you've declared he's been rejected by 100% of the audience. And if I were to go looking for fancams of house shows where he's over I guess that would just be piped in crowd noise.

Here's some figures from August 2015, from just a cursory search:

 

1 – Cena "15x" shirt

2 – Balor "Balor Club" shirt

3 – Rollins "Never Shuts Up" shirt

4 – Lesnar "Suplex City: Brooklyn" shirt

5 – Bryan "Yes Revolution" shirt (on sale 7.99)

6 – Lesnar "Suplex City: Minneapolis" shirt

7 – Cesaro "The Professional" shirt

8 – Reigns "Hit Hard, Hit Often" shirt

9 – Owens "KO" shirt

10 – Liger "Thunder" shirt

 

Those were the biggest selling items at that time.

 

What does it say?

 

You tell me. You have said merch is an important indicator.

Something I'm genuinely curious about -- is there truly more money to be made with the salt-of-the-earth family types that attend house shows than there are vocal, college age types that reject direction sometimes? Or do they just prefer the first audience because they are easier to book for?

I'd guess they also consider the (probable) fact most of those college-age-dissenters (who are still buying tickets, merch, and network subs even if they are boo'ing) were hooked as children.