Really tough for wrestling to exist in the age of social media. I loved it back when I was a kid - mid to late 80's, early 90's WWF was awesome. And I loved the nWo storyline in WCW in the late 90's.
But then, even if you knew it was fake, you still had a relative illusion of good vs. bad (or faces vs. heels as it were). With social media, everyone knows what all the story lines are about, or that the guy who's being booked as a heel spent all day at the children's hospital signing autographs while the guy being booked as a face was getting busted for a DUI, and it just doesn't work as well. I've tried to get back into it a few times and it never takes.
The audiences are in three groups:
1) Kids. They love the characters and normally aren't going to care about social media too much. They just want to see their favorite people go out there and perform. I don't think anything's changed here.
2) Fans who are big into social media. I think this is fine, IMO. You don't have to be a bad guy all of the time to come off as a bad guy on the show. Think of the worst people on TV. Joffrey, Stringer Bell, Adebisi, Matt Damon. You think those people are like that in real life? More than likely no.
Fans of the product still (I hope!) have the ability to parse between "very good characters" and "generally assholes." The Miz, for a good three years, was the biggest pure heel in WWE (his latest run, not his WWE Championship run), and he was not only the nicest person to meet, but was the first person to do literally any community outreach (that John Cena couldn't make it to). Sami Zayn...same guy. I think that the blurring of real life vs characters makes it a -little- harder to grab new fans but ultimately the performances and character arcs are what win them over, if it happens.
3) "It's Still Real To Me, Dammit" people, which...look, don't cater to those mfs, ok?
It's fun. It's entertainment. Just like any sport, just like Pokemon Go, just like gambling, just like birdwatching. It's just a matter of who's into it or not.
