WWE News: Randy Orton Responds To Fan Complaints Regarding His Merchandise
Back in 2011 — for a brief moment — CM Punk passed John Cena as WWE’s top merchandise seller. Rumor has it that WWE executives weren’t happy that Punk was the one to finally beat Cena in merchandise sales, so they immediately began cutting as much of Punk’s merchandise as they could while producing as much new Cena merchandise as they could. Point being, according to that rumor, if someone is going to outsell John Cena in the merchandise department, it’ll be WWE’s next handpicked guy and not someone like CM Punk.
The biggest supporters of John Cena are kids, so WWE produces a ton of youth-sized John Cena T-shirts. But, unfortunately, according to a fan who attended one of WWE’s live events in Birmingham, England this past week, they don’t sell any other wrestlers’ T-shirt in youth-size. This fan took to Twitter to complain that his son wanted a Randy Orton T-shirt, but WWE didn’t make youth-sized Randy Orton T-shirts. In fact, the only wrestler who has T-shirts that come in youth-size is John Cena.
The fans’ tweet only furthers the conspiracy theory that WWE will do absolutely everything they can to keep John Cena as their top merchandise seller. Randy Orton responded to the fan, and he didn’t really have an answer for him. However, he agreed and said that WWE needs to give the kids a choice, instead of forcing them to buy Cena shirts.
Million dollar question. Thanks for asking. #givethekidsachoice #youthsmallmedlg https://t.co/Nu7kiWulAc
— Randy Orton (@RandyOrton) April 12, 2015
Some WWE fans believe that John Cena being WWE’s top merchandise seller is a self-fulfilling prophecy, meaning that WWE wants Cena to be the face of the company and the guy that little kids look up to, so they produce as much Cena-related merchandise as they can. They also reserve any youth-sized T-shirts for John Cena shirts, thus keeping Cena well-above everyone else in merchandise sales.
Randy Orton is one of the most popular wrestlers on WWE’s roster, and it’s possible that if WWE focused on producing Randy Orton-related merchandise at the rate that they produce John Cena-related merchandise, Orton may be WWE’s top merchandise seller.
Because Orton responded to the fan’s tweet, it’s likely that WWE will look to resolve the issue as soon as possible to avoid any further backlash or conspiracy theories. So expect them to start producing youth-sized T-shirts for not just young Randy Orton fans, but for the other popular wrestlers on their roster.
[Image via WWE]
