Vince Russo thinks Triple H is frustrated with modern wrestling fans. He just doesn’t think WWE has anyone to blame but itself.
Triple H recently spoke with Stephen A. Smith and said fans sometimes lose perspective when it comes to WWE. His point was that wrestling is supposed to be entertainment and a place where people can shut out the world for a few hours.
“The other aspect of that is I think that people lose perspective of sometimes is, we’re just fun, man. We’re fun and sometimes people take it too seriously, sometimes people get too caught up in it, but it’s there to entertain, man. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. If you just want to turn off for a couple of hours and tune into something cool that you can just lose yourself in and have a good time, WWE is the place to do it. If you’ve never seen it live, I’m telling you, come to a live event, come to one of our PLEs, come to a TV. There’s nothing like it in entertainment.”
While speaking with DEMAND LUCHA, Russo reacted to Triple H’s recent comments about fans taking wrestling too seriously and WWE simply being a form of entertainment. Russo admitted he could hear the frustration in Triple H’s voice—but said that frustration is the direct result of decisions WWE made years ago.
“That’s what it’s supposed to be, bro—it’s supposed to be fun. I swear to God, I felt Triple H’s frustration in that interview a couple weeks ago, talking about their fan base now, which is the IWC—that’s the fan base. He was like, ‘We’re supposed to be having fun.’ I could see how frustrated he was, but I have no sympathy, because WWE made a conscious decision to cater to these people. Once you’re catering to the internet wrestling community, bro, that’s exactly what you’re gonna get.”
Russo argued that today’s online wrestling culture didn’t just happen overnight. In his view, WWE spent years embracing the Internet Wrestling Community, and now it’s dealing with a fanbase that analyzes every booking decision, debates every creative choice and treats every show like something that needs to be dissected instead of enjoyed.
But Russo didn’t stop there. He also believes WWE’s relentless schedule has boxed the company into a creative corner. With television every week, Premium Live Events, international specials and an ever-growing calendar, Russo argued there’s simply no breathing room left to craft the kind of long-term stories that once made wrestling feel special.
“You gotta have time to do that. And WWE has no time—it’s show after show after show, no time to think about stuff like that. But that’s a problem they created for themselves—they never said no to anybody offering them money while knowing they were bastardizing the product, watering it down. But they took the money, and that’s why they’re in the spot they’re in now.”
Russo’s comments came after Triple H recently encouraged fans to remember that WWE is ultimately meant to be an escape from everyday life, saying it’s a place where people can switch off for a few hours and simply have fun.
Russo agrees with that philosophy. He just believes WWE made it much harder to achieve by building a product around the very audience Triple H now seems frustrated with.
Do you agree with Vince Russo that WWE created its own problems by catering too much to the IWC? Let us know in the comments below.
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