Stephanie McMahon On WWE Haters, The Difference Between WWE Getting Booed and Heels Getting Booed

During an interview with The Playbook podcast, Stephanie McMahon was asked about a variety of topics when it comes to WWE, one being the difference between booing WWE as a company and booing the heel characters.

“Well, from a business standpoint, you know, I portray a heel or a villain as a character. And I encourage the boos, and all the haters. And quite frankly, from a storytelling perspective I find the antagonist a million times more interesting than the protagonist. But when you consider that basic format, right? Whether it’s a book or a movie, an opera, ballet, it is protagonist vs. antagonist with conflict resolution. It’s the most basic form of storytelling that there is.

In WWE, our conflicts are settled inside the ring, right? With some of the greatest live action that you can see in sports or entertainment, in my opinion. But of course you want to encourage the haters I guess, in that aspect, because you want them to root for the good guy. You want them to root for the hero. And the only way you’re going to do that is by presenting the biggest, baddest, most offensive villain that you possibly can so that you can cheer the good guy.”

Stephanie also spoke about turning negativity into positivity, namely with "WWE haters."

“How that parlays into other brands and business, I think you can’t look at it as ‘haters,’ right? I think there’s, in storyline there can be haters and encouraging the negativity. I think from a business standpoint, you want to look at it like constructive feedback. And some of it, you have to disregard because it’s not constructive at all. But most of the time, I think people are trying to give an opinion of something they’d like to see change or improve. So if you can — it’s very hard to do, particularly when you’re an individual reading something that is directed at you. And it’s hard not to be emotional about that, but you have to try to parse through the way it’s written and try to get to the heart of what someone’s really trying to say.”