You may well be right.
I do think there’s some weight in the argument that it’s pointless playing to the ‘casual’ fan because they aren’t really channel hopping these days due to the vast amount of streaming and other viewing options.
It makes business sense to play to a strong core audience and then have moments that can go viral, i.e. Bad Bunny, CM Punk’s return, the ring collapsing under Braun and Big Show’s weight etc. Whereas, back in the day, it was about attracting eyeballs and keeping them through the duration of the show (the whole philosophy behind Crash TV).
Most of the engaged wrestling fans love the pure in ring stuff. The ‘casuals’ have checked out in their droves or only engage sporadically, i.e. kids. Therefore, an Attitude era style product today would fall on its arse as it’d turn off the purists but the casuals it’s aimed at are long gone and not coming back en masse due to the much changed nature of entertainment consumption.
For me, NXT 2.0 is way more interesting than its previous incarnation. 1.0 Takeovers were amazing for what they were but weekly shows were just so dull. However, 2.0 is being panned and ratings are sinking because the already invested audience are put off by the short matches, lower quality technical wrestling and lack of indie super fed feel that was 1.0.
So basically I’m contradicting my earlier point to some degree.