Sami Callihan thinks too many wrestling fans have forgotten how to simply enjoy wrestling.
Speaking to Soundsphere, instead of talking about matches, characters and stories, Callihan believes the conversation has shifted toward television ratings, buy rates, social media engagement and whatever opinion happens to be trending online. In his view, fans are spending more time arguing over numbers than deciding for themselves whether they actually like a show.
“It boggles my mind. Like it’s not just professional wrestling. It’s movies. It’s all forms of entertainment. ‘Oh, this had this much views’ or ‘I’m not going to like this because these people didn’t watch and these people didn’t like it.’ I watch movies all the time that people don’t like and I absolutely love because I don’t let other people’s opinion on things like convolute my opinion on stuff.”
Callihan doesn’t think the problem stops with fans, either. He says wrestlers have fallen into the same trap by letting one negative comment outweigh hundreds of positive ones after a match.
“It’s the same thing with wrestling and that’s another thing I think with young wrestlers. They might have a match and then they go instantly on Twitter… But then they take that one tweet that was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t like that match. That was terrible.’ And they let that harp their entire observation of what their match is.”
For Callihan, that’s a dangerous way to approach any creative profession. He believes performers have to trust their own instincts instead of allowing strangers on social media to decide whether their work has value.
“No one’s going to tell me whether my art’s good or bad. I’m going to tell myself whether I like something or I don’t. There’s stuff that people like that I didn’t like, but I’m going to have my own opinion and there’s not going to be anyone that’s going to jade me from that. That’s the art form of professional wrestling. That’s the art form of entertainment in general. You can’t allow every single voice to contradict what you feel about yourself and what you feel about your art.”
He also pushed back on the idea that Twitter represents the wrestling audience as a whole. While social media dominates online discussions, Callihan pointed out that only a tiny fraction of viewers are actually posting about wrestling, making it a mistake to treat Twitter as the voice of the entire fanbase.
“Maybe 20% of the world actually has Twitter. Or even if you look at a television program, a wrestling program might have two million viewers. It was only mentioned on Twitter 22,000 times… That puts things into the grand scheme that our business is way bigger than just social media. Sure, social media is a great tool. Sure, social media is great to help build your brand, but at the same point, it’s not everything.”
Callihan’s message was straightforward: stop letting ratings, engagement numbers and online arguments decide what you enjoy. Whether it’s wrestling, movies or any other form of entertainment, he believes people should make up their own minds instead of following the crowd.
Do you think wrestling fans have become too focused on ratings and social media discourse? Let us know in the comments below.
