WWE’s Senior Vice President of Live Events “Road Dogg” Brian James discussed a variety of topics on the most recent episode of “Oh…You Didn’t Know.”
During the podcast, James discussed Vince McMahon’s thoughts on NXT and how much attention he paid to the brand. He claims that when he first met Gunther, the former Chairman had no idea who he was.
“Well, so look, Vince didn’t watch the programme. Vince heard the social media reports about the programme, he read the emails about the ratings. He got the information, but he didn’t know who Gunther was. He didn’t know what Gunther, then Walter brought to the table. He very much was not the guy out scouting talent and independent shows in other countries. That’s not Vince McMahon. And so he didn’t know what Walter brought to the table, excuse me, Gunther, I want to say it correctly, Gunther brought to the table.
“So he would feed stuff like that, thinking that the layperson may not know him either. And I don’t think that’s wrong thinking, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t think it’s wrong to think there are people watching the show who do not know who Walter was, you know what I mean? I think that makes perfect [sense]. [It’s then mentioned that people who watch Raw don’t all watch NXT] Exactly, exactly.
“And then we literally have the analytics to prove that and what the percentage of the show that they do watch is so minuscule usually, that it’s hard to get a read on whether they know the talent or not. Because they may watch 70 minutes of Raw, you know what I mean? Or 62 minutes of Raw and 33 minutes of, you know what I mean, of NXT? And so, did they see superstar X? Or did they turn [the channel] before he was [on], you know what I mean? So it’s, I understand his thinking of they, they may not know who Gunther is at this point.”
You can listen to the complete interview below:
(h/t to Inside The Ropes)
