As you would imagine, the newly launched "Industry News" section on WWE.com has shocked a lot of people. The decision to launch the section was made by Vince McMahon.
Michael Cole was replaced as the top guy running WWE.com because McMahon was disappointed with the types of stories being posted on the site, not to mention the decline in unique visitors (traffic to WWE.com has dropped with each passing quarter since WrestleMania 23). A while back, they adopted a new, or old approach, by generally doing stories like if they came from a 1980s wrestling magazine by keeping kayfabe and acting like the storylines are real. This came to be due to Stephanie McMahon & Triple H; more Triple H from talking with older wrestlers who insist the business being exposed is its downfall.
A new editor for the website has since been hired. He suggested a few "wacky" ideas, but McMahon nixed pretty much all of them. However, McMahon suddenly got one of his impulse reactions and said that he wanted WWE.com to become the destination point for every wrestling fan who wanted real wrestling news. He had the idea in the past, but always changed his mind on it before pulling the trigger. McMahon described that he wanted WWE.com to be similar to the Drudge Report and Daily Variety.
One person was hired to be in charge of the "Industry News" section. The person is said to be a very casual wrestling fan who is a fish out of water in the position. They're paying him to surf wrestling news websites like this one and pick out stories to post on WWE.com. The stories this person picks have to be screened by the creative team so that the wrong thing is not posted. They are continually taking my (Ryan Clark) stories and crediting WrestleZone, which is one of many websites that I report for. I own ProWrestlingSCOOPS.com but report for many various wrestling news websites besides my own including this one in eWrestlingNews.com.
McMahon said he wanted news on rival promotions such as TNA, and even obscure indy leagues. He said the section won't work unless fans see it as "credible news."
At first, McMahon wanted absolutely nothing posted or credited to the Wrestling Observer or The Pro '10,000+ popup filled' Wrestling Insider website, however, he quickly changed his stance on the two entities and news items from the two have since been posted on WWE.com.
The new feature is said to be a constantly evolving process. Also, some people believe that McMahon will change his mind on the section sooner or later.
For a number of years, Shane McMahon was lobbying the idea, but as a premium on a subscription portion of the site. However, Stephanie shot the idea down. Shane's idea wasn't to credit websites, but for WWE to create the news and be competition for all the other websites. He believed with WWE's greater resources and access to all the key news, everyone would go to WWE for the news, and they would eventually control all the industry news. Shane's vision was said to be similar to how the Fox News Channel reports news in a sense that it would be news, but skewed toward their viewpoint.
The fact of the matter is this. We're now going anywhere obviously. You guys all know that we've got loads more backstage news and stories than WWE.com and they won't post the 'backstage gossip' stories, if you will. This will not affect us at all and we'll continue posting the usual stuff on a daily basis. We do appreciate the credit though, WWE! Thanks!!
