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With all the buzz about the negative social media about the WWE Network since the WWE Royal Rumble ended, I was curious how much of that buzz was equal to actual viewers cancelling their subscriptions to the streaming service.
While this is hardly scientific hard research, after speaking with several sources, I was told that while there were some who canceled the service, it was not such a grand amount that WWE is considering it a significant number internally. So, while they lost some subscribers, it wasn't like they lost such a massive amount that the company was going into emergency meetings or anything of the such.
The belief internally that much of the buzz online was simply fans voicing their anger over the way the Rumble PPV, specifically The Rumble match and how Daniel Bryan was used, played out.
In that regard, WWE is probably right and if they have the fans that upset, they really should be thinking about how Bryan is used and portrayed going forward. The company needs to realize this is not about whether Bryan won the Rumble or not, but how he was portrayed during the show. Daniel Bryan came in like a homecoming hero and was gone, just a few minutes later, like a freshman nerd. In my opinion, he's earned far better then that. Beyond that, the lion's share of the WWE audience wants him to be a top guy - and are willing to pay for that. For WWE to not use him at that level, is basically throwing money out the window in my opinon.
Sources also indicate that while there were some issues with buffering during the Royal Rumble's live stream, those issues were not widespread and there was no outage on WWE's end. The belief is that it was something more localized that caused issues that was outside of the Network's sphere of influence.
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