Why we shouldn’t take anything the Internet Wrestling Community says seriously

I’m sorry for saying this, but I’m starting to get tired of the vocal minority of the IWC (Internet Wrestling Community) getting all the attention because of how much they love to complain.

For me, this all started last year after Jey Uso won the Royal Rumble. For months, fans were jumping on the Jey Uso bandwagon. They wanted to see something fresh at WrestleMania, and Jey was that—a new face that WWE decided to put in the main event picture based on how over he was with the fans, both in the ring and on the merchandise sales side of things. Then a weird thing happened: that small minority of fans turned on Jey and started spreading their hatred all over the internet, which made the news. Like always, the rest of us got lumped in with the minority, and the news wasn’t about how a vocal minority hated Jey, but how the fans had turned on him.

Fast forward a year to AJ Styles’ retirement. As soon as it came out that Styles was retiring at the Royal Rumble, the vocal minority came out and started spreading rumors that AJ didn’t want to retire at the Rumble, that WWE forced him to put Gunther over, and that Styles was leaving WWE to sign with AEW. When AJ got his retirement party a few weeks later, the narrative shifted again. Now it was all about WWE only inducting him into the Hall of Fame so he wouldn’t go to AEW in May, and that he was forced into signing a new WWE contract. Even after Styles went on the Good Brothers’ podcast to explain his decision, you still had the vocal minority spreading false news on social media.

Then let’s go to Cody’s title win. It was a moment that fans in the arena loved and actually cheered. But again, what came out in the news today? It wasn’t about how much the live crowd loved seeing Cody win the title for a third time, but how many dislikes the video of Cody winning got on YouTube. As we all know, it’s not like we haven’t seen this type of situation before, where a small group of people makes the negative option appear larger than the positive one. Yet we still act like this type of data is a true representation of what fans really think about a situation.

That’s why I think it’s time to stop listening to the vocal minority of the IWC because, sadly, they are making the rest of us look bad just because they can’t accept that WWE or any other company isn’t booking the show around what they want.

Back in the day, before social media existed, companies based their decisions about who to push solely on crowd reactions and how much money the wrestlers could draw. That’s why guys like Hogan, Warrior, Flair, Savage, Hart, Austin, The Rock, Lesnar, and Cena were pushed to the top spot—because fans got them over to the point that they were real draws. If fans truly hated something, they would let the company hear it at the shows. I feel like news outlets and wrestling companies should focus more on how fans actually react at the shows, like they did back in the day, instead of continuing to give the vocal minority of the IWC all the spotlight. Those people don’t represent the majority of us in the IWC and shouldn’t get the attention they have right now because, let’s face it, they love to manipulate the narrative and create a toxic environment in the process.

So in the end, do I think things like how many dislikes a YouTube video gets or negative comments on social media actually matter? No, I don’t. While I love seeing constructive discussions from the IWC on social media, I also understand that for some people, being negative is their way of getting their voice heard. But if WWE—or even AEW—has any sense, they should stop relying on social media for feedback, because those opinions can be manufactured and misleading. The real way to get the pulse of your audience is from the paying crowd and how they react to your product.