Nick Khan knows WWE fans complain online. He just doesn’t believe the loudest people on social media should be the ones deciding what WWE does next.
While speaking to The Varsity, Khan was discussing WWE’s relationship with ESPN and ESPN Unlimited when John Ourand pointed out that wrestling fans “love to complain.” Khan didn’t exactly disagree, but he also doesn’t think that behavior is unique to wrestling.
To explain it, Khan went back to something that existed long before Twitter or X. Restaurants and airlines used to hand customers comment and complaint cards, and Khan sees social media as a modern version of the same thing.
“And by the way, in terms of complaints, sports fans in general, it’s sort of why Twitter, now X, was created. It’s almost like when you and I, John, were much younger. Do you remember, like, comment or complaint cards? Like restaurants would have them, airlines would have them.”
Sure, somebody might occasionally fill one out because the waiter was incredible or the food was perfect. Khan’s point is that most people weren’t reaching for those cards because everything went well.
“Rarely, yeah, you got the nice person who would put in a comment card of, ‘I just wanna let you know how exceptional the service was tonight,’ and this and that when you’re leaving a restaurant. But that’s not what that medium was created for. What it was created for was, ‘The service was terrible, the food was terrible, I didn’t like it,’ so you’d only get complaints.”
That doesn’t mean WWE sees criticism online and immediately throws it in the trash. Khan admitted there are times when the company looks at what fans are saying, realizes they have a point and changes something. What WWE won’t do is cater to all of it.
“And by the way, those complaints, some of them we look at and we say, ‘Hey, there’s some truth to this. Let’s make a little adjustment here, this or that.’ But you cannot cater.”
Khan’s bigger issue is treating social media like a perfect snapshot of WWE’s entire audience. He used politics as an example of how what appears overwhelmingly popular online doesn’t always match what happens once a much larger group of people gets involved.
“You’ve seen this in politics. If you believe what social media says, you will incorrectly predict so many outcomes.”
For Khan, simply monitoring criticism isn’t the problem. The mistake comes when companies start believing everything they read online and then build their decisions around it.
“So for companies that read it and believe it and react to it, it never ever works.”
That leaves WWE putting considerably more trust in the people already making those decisions. Khan pointed directly to Triple H, calling him the “best creative” in all of wrestling, while also praising WWE’s live events and consumer products teams.
“You have to rely on your team to know. We have the best creative in terms of all of wrestling in Triple H, real name Paul Levesque. We have the best live events team, in my opinion. We have the best merchandise consumer products team. They’re able to monetize it.”
Khan believes the results across TKO show why that trust matters. He pointed to the continued growth of WWE, UFC, On Location, IMG and PBR while acknowledging that staying successful still means constantly developing and changing.
“And if you’ve seen the growth at TKO, that’s, you know, UFC, WWE, On Location, IMG, PBR, each of these continue to grow every year. It’s not easy, but it’s not supposed to be easy. So you gotta continue to develop and redevelop what you do, and you gotta make sure that you have the right team in place that can help you make the right decisions.”
WWE is listening to what fans say online, but listening and letting them run the show are two very different things. Khan is willing to make an adjustment when the criticism makes sense, but he’d rather trust WWE’s own team than treat every angry post as a mandate for change.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
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