Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: Seth Rollins, wrestling, wwe

Seth Rollins Blames Fan Attention Spans for WWE Failures

Published Mon, 10 Aug 2020 12:05:43 -0500

Seth Rollins is back at it again, lashing out at fans for criticizing WWE. Rollins was recently interviewed by the Gorilla Position podcast, as transcribed by Wrestling Inc., and there he had some interesting comments on fan reception to his character and storyline with Rey Mysterio.

It's not Seth Rollins's fault the whippersnappers of Gen Z don't appreciate the greatness of Seth Rollins.

"Although I have been careful to craft the character, nothing has been perfectly planned out for months in advance," seemingly admitting that WWE has no concept of long-term planning and thus undercuttting his entire argument right from the start. "There has been no timetable on how things are going to go."

Despite his admission, Rollins claimed audiences simply don't have the patience for the kind of long-term storytelling Rollins and WWE are engaging in. "In the age of instant gratification, audiences don't have the patience for long term storytelling," he said. "When you can binge watch your favorite series in two days, as opposed to two months, it creates a different precedent for how we intake our entertainment."

Rollins then engaged in one of my personal favorite tropes of the modern internet era: aging Millennials unironically complaining about Gen Z. "We are consuming our entertainment differently, and wrestling is not immune to this shift," Rollins said. "We have to adapt as well, to keep up with our audience. I am in my 30s so I grew up to the longer form of entertainment. But our younger audience isn't wired that way."

Of course, WWE competitor AEW seems to have no problem appealing to younger fans with long-running storylines, at least according to the ratings, so it's almost as if it isn't the length of the storytelling but the quality that younger viewers judge the product on. Of course, Rollins has spend the past several years blaming fans for WWE's failures, he's unlikely to change his tune any time soon.

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