This one is short and sweet. One of the biggest complaints you see on social media about Roman Reigns is that no one cares about him, and thus he’s being shoved down our throats. And this complaint has been largely immune to counter arguments because even when you try to state some facts like views on WWE’s YouTube channel or reports about merchandise sales, you’re often hit with tinfoil hat stuff from number truthers. So to show you just how full of it the guys who promote this argument are I’m going to peel the curtain back a bit and give some perspective on just where he fits in on this site. I don’t have any means or incentives to cook the books here; if you choose to no believe me that’s on you. It’s not my job to get you put the tinfoil hat away if you insist on leaving it on. Now let’s get to it.
Here are the numbers on this site as 9:00 PM on April 18. My top 10 wrestling related posts for the year to date are:
WWE Live Baltimore Report* – 613 clicks
Ideas for 2018 and Beyond* – 203
Fan Wars: Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan – 181
Royal Rumble Weekend Thoughts* – 123
What to do about Roman Reigns? – 113
Daniel Bryan’s Back? Now What* – 112
Top Fives for 2017* – 89
Where does Chris Jericho Rank?* – 56
The myth of Getting Yourself Over – 43
Roman’s Main Events – 35
Everything with an * is a post that I took out Facebook ads for to advertise and get more exposure. If you notice, the ones with Roman Reigns in the headline didn’t get any ads and yet they’re keeping pace with the ones that did. Of particular note is the ‘Fan Wars’ piece. I published that one day after the ‘Daniel Bryan’s Back’ piece and it has more clicks, 181 to 112, despite being up one fewer day and not having any Facebook ads to promote it. And ‘What to do about Roman Reigns?’ has 113 clicks despite only being published April 9 vs 112 for ‘Daniel Bryan’s Back’. The one piece I ran ads for that references Roman is the Baltimore House Show and that 3 times as many clicks as the next highest piece.
What’s that all saying? That the pieces I’ve done that either have Roman’s name in the headline or devote some space to talking about him get as much or more traffic with no Facebook ads, just a tweet with the link in it, as some of the pieces I’ve publicized with Facebook ads. And the one that I did run ads for is the most read piece this year by far. And that’s just current stuff. This year I have pieces that are one year (WM 33), two years (WM 32) and even three years old that either have his name in the title or reference him in one part that are getting clicks. I do zero publicizing for any of those any more and people are digging them to read them. Now I’ve got other pieces in other subjects that get similar results but for wrestling there’s a clear pattern here.
So does mean anything larger? Yes. You see there are podcasters, bloggers, and YouTubers out there that put the name Roman Reigns in their pieces and episodes to get clicks and views but turn around and tell you on Twitter that no one cares about him. If my small one man operation that relies on a few Facebook ads but mostly shared links on Twitter can get over 100 clicks in a week or so then these people with bigger platforms are getting thousands of clicks and views, and they’re monetizing that attention (one of them who I won’t mention even tweeted out one day that by putting Roman’s name in the title he was good to get hundreds more views). Don’t think for one minute that they actually want Roman to go away. Between Roman fans hate reading/listening/viewing (Don’t do that, by the way. There are plenty of places you can get honest takes about the man without wanting to chuck your phone across the room.) and the fanboys that swear by their hot takes, they’re riding the very interest that they claim does not exist.
So don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe. The people screaming the loudest are full of crap. If the money was to be made promoting other guys they would do it.
Stroke of Genius 