WWE Cosplayers Forced to Change Clothes or Lose RAW Seats

[cero2k]

Source: nerdbastards.com

-- A nice writing about something that happened last night at RAW

When wrestling Superfan Kris Laufer and his group of wrestling cosplayers showed up at this week’s RAW in full costume, you’d think that WWE staff would be impressed, excited, and welcoming to such incredible cosplay. Seriously, what better way to show fans are pumped up than when they cosplay some of wrestling’s favorite characters? Turns out, that wasn’t the case and the group was forced to choose: Wear their costumes or lose their front row ($100) tickets to the event.

Here’s the series of tweets that Laufer’s group tweeted when the WWE body-slammed their Cosplay aspirations:

I gotta say that is some total BULLSHIT! I’ll grant the WWE the right to censor clothing, signs, or other material that might contain offensive material that might offend the television audience and hurt the WWE brand, but cosplayers? I can’t see this hurting the WWE brand or offending anyone in the television audience. In fact I see this having the opposite effect. That is until the WWE put the sleeper hold on Cosplay in the front row.

The WWE has not made a statement about this yet, and I wouldn’t hold my breath, but I would like to tell the WWE that they missed out on a HUGE opportunity to excite fans and make a positive contribution to the WWE brand. The WWE should have gotten these fans on tape, taken them back stage to meet the wrestlers, and just made a big to-do about the whole thing. Instead they look like huge party-poopers.

Laufer also posted this email he sent to the WWE after he got home that night.

Hey guys. I was Macho Man last night at Raw. Here is the email I sent to WWE.com in response to the actions taken by WWE last night.

As a life-long fan of your product, I was very excited to attend your show last night (Des Moines 3/16/2015). I had secured 10 tickets in the front row at $100 a ticket. By my math that is $1,000 that we paid the WWE to attend your event. The seats were in the front row. Being a huge fan, I made sure to invite 9 other rabid fans and we all made the decision to pay tribute to our favorite wrestlers and dress like them. Within 10 minutes of the show starting, we were told that our outfits were “too distracting” and to change clothes, or we would be moved. I assure you none of the members of our party were being in any way unruly or belligerent. You can watch the taping and see for yourself. We were merely watching the show. Now, I have heard rumblings in the past of people being booted from their seats for costumes, but I always sided with the WWE and assumed that those fans HAD to have done something else to lose their seats, and WWE wouldn’t boot people for simply dressing up. Now I know that they indeed will do that, regardless of how respectful you are. This seems to contradict your “Be a Star” promotions (which ironically enough was running on the screen as we were being scolded by WWE producers) that seem to encourage fanaticism.

I guess at the end of the day, all I am looking for is an explanation as to why you would boot fans who spend the time, energy, and money on advocating your product. Seems like just the kind of people you would want in your corner.

For the record, I am still in your corner, however disappointed I may be.

Thanks for your time, Matt Sheridan

PS – Had we all been dressed as John Cena or Roman Reigns would the outcome have been different? Please advise so I can let the other 9 guys know for future shows.

The WWE needs to get with the times and celebrate their fans, especially those with the talent and creativity to cosplay those incredible costumes.

What do you think? What choice would you have made as the WWE or the Cosplayers if you were in their place?


Read more at http://nerdbastards.com/2015/03/17/wwe- ... KWVFGWK.99

[Big Red Machine]

Yeah... this was REALLY f*cking stupid of them. I saw them at the beginning of the show, chuckled, and had some fun trying to figure out who some of them were. It didn't distract from the show. Hell... it made it better because I had something to do during the super-boring promos.

[Big Red Machine]

A follow-up that makes WWE's actions seem a lot more reasonable:

Remember the stuff from yesterday about the fans in WWE legend costumes who were forced to change their clothes or else lose their front row seats dead center across from the hard camera? And how it seemed overzealous because they weren't playing to the crowd and actively distracting from the matches? Well, a Reddit poster who remembered them from a previous Des Moines Raw he had attended decided to look at the last two Des Moines Raws on WWE Network. What did he find? The same fans in the same costumes blatantly playing to the crowd and having issues with arena security. Welcome to the Internet in 2015. Anyway, when you see this, it's now a lot easier to understand WWE's point of view for making them change even if they hadn't acted up yet during Monday's show.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/c ... ressed_as/