WWE's success with social media has helped the company greatly within the past 5 years, it provides another distribution channel for content along with instant interaction between fans and the talent. The one area of digital media they haven't attempted would be podcasts (Unless you count the early Byte This shows, which were at the time groundbreaking and probably one of the most influential web series in sports)
Podcasts have already proven successful in professional wrestling, with Colt Cabana's Art Of Wrestling, Live Audio Wrestling/Review-A-Wai, Aftermath and Wrestling Observer being just a few of the many podcasts to become fairly popular. Why WWE management or WWE talent hasn't used this platform to gain an audience is beyond me, the only justification I can state is that they may not feel comfortable with having talent be themselves for over an hour. The reason for the success of Zack Ryder's Z True Long Island Story show on YouTube is clearly the fact that WWE had no influence whatsoever in the creative process. This allowed for Zack's personality to show and with it he gained fans week by week the old fashioned way. Of course the result of that was an increase of merchandise sales that was nowhere near proportional to the amount of television time he had (which was zero) at the time. By utilizing a fresh platform, a flip cam, creativity and entertaining friends, Zack was able to literally save his entire career while making his employer tons of money.
The use of alternative mediums in which to showcase talent has proven successful on the indie level by the success of Cliff "Domino" Compton, a former WWE talent that appeared on Colt Cabana's Art Of Wrestling podcast to explain his recent situation of being stranded in Nigeria. To understand why this is an important moment is to first understand Mr. Compton's first "character" on WWE television, which was as part of a 1950's greaser themed tag team named Deuce 'n Domino who came out to the ring completely stuck in a cold war era time warp.
Deuce 'n Domino did have a great entrance and even greater theme music
This portion of his career was moderately successful, but ultimately led to him being released by the WWE in August of 2008. At the time I remember my personal opinion of the tag team being tepid and apathetic, they weren't anything groundbreaking that made me want to rush to my TV to watch Smackdown, last year that all changed.
Cliff Compton's appearance on the Art of Wrestling to tell the entire story of being stranded in Nigeria in vivid detail. During this podcast an extremely popular-in-his-homeland Nigerian professional wrestler by the name of Great Power Uti rose to internet fame, how you ask? The answer lies in Cliff Compton's astounding storytelling ability, he is one of the most entertaining and charismatic performers I have ever heard in any sport. I know next to nothing about Domino other than the fact he liked every stereotypical 1950's thing that was out there, but after one podcast I know enough about Cliff Compton to realize he would be a blast just to hang out with. That emotional feeling I have now about the performer makes me want him to succeed, which is something WWE hasn't done in at least 7 years. He may not be selling out 10,000 seat arenas every night, but he is winning over fans with his talent and personality using the tools he currently has available, which is something WWE, TNA and ROH should take note of if they wish to develop the next generation of talent.
Listen to Colt Cabana's podcast with Cliff Compton here
Follow Cliff Compton on Twitter here
