5 Ways the WWE has an uncomfortable relationship with the internet

#3 Spoilers and dirtsheets

Mickie James was known to be the real identity of La Luchadora before she was actually revealed.

For as long as the wrestling business has been around, spoilers and dirtsheets have at least played a small role. For every time promoters and executives tried to make moves behind the scenes, there was a reporter trying to scoop out the story and let fans know about it.

Vince McMahon said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel last year that he gets frustrated by this practice, particularly because of how it affects the fans.

Nonetheless, it's difficult to hold something like that but if you can, the audience loves it. It's one of the reasons why I'll always be anti-some members of the media, so-called dirt sheets or whatever it is. Not because of their voice and certainly not because of their opinion. No one respects the First Amendment more than me. Their opinions, negative or positive, they're entitled to. I've always appreciated that because, quite frankly, some of the things I've learned from. It's that they want to be a spoiler. No! No! Don't spoil this. But I know that's a part of their job too.

Sometimes in today’s wrestling world, those leaks still truly stem from actual information that people have. In the case of Mickie James’ recent return to the WWE main roster, company officials were reportedly upset that the information got out, but people would’ve possibly figured that out anyway.

She was returning as La Luchadora, but as soon as the masked figure appeared on SmackDown, James’ name came up as a possible identity, both based on what could be seen of the character’s face and on her return to NXT.

Other times, though, the spoilers ruin what could’ve been a really spectacular surprise. When Sting made his WWE debut at the 2014 Survivor Series, he did so to help Dolph Ziggler complete his amazing comeback win over Team Authority to knock Triple H and Stephanie McMahon out of power.

If that had been allowed to be a true surprise, fans would’ve been absolutely floored that the WCW legend was truly going to be a part of the WWE and not just a video game character. Instead, several websites let the cat out of the bag hours in advance.

Even worse, these leaks and even just speculation can actively ruin a storyline both in the short-term and the long-term. A perfect case in point is the 2015 Royal Rumble, which was won by Roman Reigns much to the displeasure of fans in Philadelphia and around the world. But why did the WWE Universe turn on this idea?

After all, they had cheered Reigns just the year before when he had a much weaker pedigree but was the last man eliminated by winner Batista.

The answer, at least to a degree, lies in the leaks. Roman had been considered a favourite to win the event for quite some time, even over mega-face Daniel Bryan, and Reigns was even doing interviews as a favoured participant before the event.

This, among other things, led fans to feel like Reigns was being “shoved down their throats” as a standard-bearer for the company, and they had plenty of time to formulate reasons as to why that wasn’t acceptable.