WWE's Production Makes Everything Feel Fake

There is a man sitting in the front row, just off-center of the hard camera during the Elimination Chamber event in Toronto on Saturday. At first glance, he appeared to be a pretty standard WWE SuperFan, wearing a backwards red baseball cap, a “John Cena Still Sucks” t-shirt and of course having a replica WWE Championship belt over his shoulder.

However, as I sat down to watch the final few matches from Elimination Chamber, I couldn’t stop looking at this fan. He was constantly in-motion, bouncing on his feet whenever a move was set-up, thrusting his hands to his face in abject horror whenever Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn performed a high spot during their match, and holding his hands behind his head and making an exasperated face every single time one of Owens or Zayn kicked out during the match.

CTE ain’t enough. We gotta come up with a new term for what Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens finna have after this match 😭 #WWEChamber pic.twitter.com/eghhjewM1o
— Public Enemies Podcast (@PublicEnemiesHQ) March 2, 2025

https://twitter.com/TheMovementXx/status/1896015368537403501

Owens and Zayn worked very hard in their match, but nobody gave a more dedicated performance at Elimination Chamber than my friend here in the red hat. He was always “on”, in a constant attempt to make himself into the next Shocked Undertaker Guy, discharging a constant sense of forced enthusiasm for every single moment of WWE programming he had presumably paid thousands of dollars to witness.

Every time I tune into the WWE product, I’m constantly flustered by the production of the on-screen product. Everything always just feels so fake and forced all of the time–right down to the reactions of fans who are sitting in the front row.

I have no doubt that my friend here is legitimately a huge WWE fan, and was very excited for everything he saw at Elimination Chamber. There were many fans surrounding this particular fan who were clearly also enjoying the action at Elimination Chamber, albeit in a much more natural way. Nobody is quite THAT enthusiastic–he was like a human embodiment of a YouTube clickbait video thumbnail. He might as well have been holding a sign that said “Uber Driver Sucked Me Off??.

I can’t imagine what this individual’s day-to-day life must be if he approaches something as mundane as Sami Zayn kicking out of a standard suplex spot with such disbelief. Does he spend all day just constantly making soy face at regular occurrences? I would hate to be behind him at a stop light–I assume he would just sit there, frozen in incredulity that the light actually turned green.

When we discuss realism in wrestling, the conversation is typically focused on if the bell-to-bell work appears fake, or if the characters on the screen are not relatable or acting in a way that makes no logical sense. With WWE though, the real lack of realism comes from the television production. WWE actively wants its fans to react in a ridiculous, over-the-top way, in an endless attempt to try and pulverize any organic reactions from the audience.

Fans will point to the aforementioned Shocked Undertaker Guy as the genesis for the current generation of fans who are desperately seeking the attention of WWE’s camera crew. The thing about that was that it was organic–it was the genuine reaction of a fan who just witnessed one of the handful of most unexpected moments in modern wrestling history. It was not a fan reacting to Kevin Owens getting suplexed into a chair.

In the decade since Shocked Undertaker Guy became a meme, WWE has been chasing a similar high of fan reaction. With an army of social-media-obsessed fans desperate for their fleeting 15 minutes of fame, there is no shortage of people willing to play along.

Elimination Chamber, much like every WWE show I watch now, is filled with gratuitous shots of individual fans making soy face to whatever is happening in the ring. WWE fans are produced in such a way that it makes the fanbase appear as if they are collectively on the homepage of a YouTube account that isn’t signed in.

The phoniness of the production is most evident in the commentary. During the Owens and Zayn match, which was a fairly standard WWE plunder match, complete with the WWE-designated black folding chairs, tables and even an all-black hockey stick (dressed to tell every fan that it’s a prop and not real) the commentary of the match was unbearable.

About mid-way through the match, Michael Cole largely gave up on calling the action and instead pleaded with both Owens and Zayn to give up, as the punishment in the match was too much for him to watch. Despite the fact that nothing in the match was particularly unusual in terms of how dangerous it came across, and the entire concept of the Elimination Chamber event is built around a “career-shortening match,” Cole attempted to sell the audience that the match was too violent and needed to be stopped.

Aided by the insufferable Pat McAfee, who always sounds as if he just got done running to catch a bus, the commentary undermined the match to a hideous degree. The match lost all sense of drama as the commentators completely oversold the action, which combined with the forced demonstrations of wonder by certain visible members of the audience, created an awkward imitation of drama that was never really there.

In an ironic twist, Elimination Chamber concluded with a legitimately shocking moment, with John Cena turning heel and aligning himself with The Rock. When that happened, Cole was exasperated on commentary, but he had been exasperated all night trying to breathlessly hype up mundane actions. Our friend in the red hat in the front row bugged his eyes out of his head and stood with his mouth agape, but he had made that face hundreds of times over the previous three hours.

WWE’s decision to try to produce a product of constant fake, inorganic reactions from both the fanbase and the commentary team makes any actual drama in the company feel less relevant. When every single thing is sold as an incredible moment that should be shared on social media ASAP, nothing ends up really feeling all that important.

This strategy for WWE is undoubtedly working, the company is doing record business and Elimination Chamber was a huge success. There is a huge audience for this kind of product, and WWE will only continue to lean into it over the coming years. It’s not for me, though, nor is it for anyone that just wants a realistic depiction of what is happening and not an overly-corporate, algorithm-boosting facsimile of what being a pro wrestling fan is actually like.