WWE Hall Of Famer Bully Ray Explores The Dynamic Between Wrestling Fans And Talent

The WWE feud between CM Punk and Seth Rollins is in full swing, following many months of the two popular performers poking and prodding at one another. Speaking on "Busted Open Radio," WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray predicted that Rollins is going to have a hard time winning the support of fans when facing off against Punk, leading to the wrestler diving into his thoughts on the relationship between wrestlers and the audience.

"Wrestling fans are very forgiving when they want to love you," Bully began.

He then offered several examples to back up his statement, stating that AEW fans are often quick to forgive the promotion for its booking faults because they want to enjoy the product. Bully also harkened back to a series of events involving Sabu in ECW, which saw him receive a monumental welcome from the crowd just one year after Paul Heyman made it loud and clear that Sabu had walked out of the promotion and turned his back on the fans.

"The CM Punk fanbase will step all over the Seth Rollins fanbase," Bully continued. "And it's not because of Seth, it's because of Punk. People don't care that Punk left."

Punk's biggest strength, according to Bully, is that his character has not changed since his previous WWE run. The company's fans are happy to have him back, and that happiness will translate to loyal support, even against someone as popular as Rollins.

A little later in the show, the discussion continued to focus around Punk, but the hosts instead began to discuss the effect of his departure on AEW. Bully feels that losing Punk and Cody Rhodes has hurt the promotion's popularity, but the problems go deeper than that.

"I think wrestling fans like to be on the winning team, and WWE right now ... is the winning team," Bully stated. "If you're looking for the stuff that you get in AEW, and I'm talking about the ... exciting, acrobatic type of matches, ... you can find that in the WWE also, and you can find it with psychology and selling."

Bully believes that Punk's departure had an immediate effect, with a number of fans dropping off after he was fired. Since then, there has been an "erosion" of the promotion's TV audience and a noticeable drop in enthusiasm, and he blames AEW's creative direction rather than any individuals.

Over in WWE, Bully believes that Punk, along with stars like Roman Reigns, do make a minor difference in the TV audience. However, most viewers are tuning in simply because they watch WWE TV every week. Though many of WWE's numbers were declining in Vince McMahon's final years atop the promotion, popularity is on the rise following Paul "Triple H" Levesque taking over as head of creative.

"WWE has always had competition that fans have wanted to run to," Bully said. "The empire of the WWE has never been taken down."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.