Following professional wrestlers, those affiliated with WWE or elsewhere, on social media can hurt or improve their reputation in a fan’s eyes. While some wrestlers show off their creativity through jokes and character work and others reveal less flattering sides of their personalities, and either way can affect how fans view their in-ring work.
On the Notsam Wrestling podcast, Drew McIntyre gave his thoughts on wrestlers and social media, starting with a line about how he and Cody are examples of WWE Superstars who achieved success on the indies:
I see all these tweets out there – these negative tweets and it drives me bloody crazy… I assure you that if you’re in WWE right now, you want to figure it out. Because if you do go outside the company there is a lot of opportunity, but some people aren’t willing to put in the work. I can’t guarantee you’re going to be a Drew Galloway or a Cody Rhodes, so you might want to start putting the work in while you’re in WWE and stop complaining on Twitter.
While he recognized that wrestlers promoting themselves on social media has benefits, he added:
It’s interesting with social media age today. It’s weird… I think there’s a lack of mystique these days because all of us were such super-fans, but we’re putting it out there for the public on social media just how much of super-fans we are and how much we are just the same as everybody rather than keeping a little bit of that mystique, keeping that “superstar” mentality… That’s kind of been my mentality is keeping myself at a distance.
McIntyre described how he worked to preserve his mystique on the independent scene, giving an example of not interacting with fans after shows at PWG (where wrestlers usually interact with fans) so his presence felt “different from everybody else. I was trying to project that superstar vibe.” He also said interacting with fans online makes the current generation of wrestlers seem less “larger than life” than previous ones.
What’s your take on McIntyre’s statements? Let us known in the comments!
