'In a word, yes. On a recent radio show, Meltzer said that pretty much immediately after the first Cena loss to Owens, WWE got business metrics that indicated almost immediately that people were not down with the whole "John Cena doing clean jobs" deal and they made sure to put him over in match #2. '
I'm sure that I probably already know the answer to this, but surely the business was based for nearly a century on swallowing a short term loss for longer term gain? Is there not a chance that the financial losses would ultimately be recuperated, and then some, if they allowed the feud to really build and develop over a serious time frame?
It all seems a little myopic...
Yeah, but that's the business now. Look at how Vince panics just based on the wild swings of the ratings these days, like bringing Brock back a month early despite having no clear story to tell with him as a babyface. And now he's already ruined that bit of drawing power based on this past Monday's show going into the tank as well. Vince books for the shareholders and everyone else books for Vince.