Ryan Satin On How FOX Wants Him To Handle His Coverage Of WWE
WWE on FOX analyst Ryan Satin was on a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily where and Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman discussed Satin letting go of the site he founded and edited for many years, Pro Wrestling Sheet to sign with FOX Sports. Satin admitted that it was a difficult decision, but the opportunity with FOX Sports was something he could not pass up.
"I mean, as difficult as it may have been to give up my baby, I really wanted to do this. I really wanted to move to FOX Sports," Satin expressed. "Once I started doing WWE Backstage, and I got that taste for the FOX Sports life, it really changed everything within me, and it became my number one goal to move there and become a FOX Sports analyst for WWE content.
"Seeing the team of people they have there, seeing just the things that I would have at my disposal working every week, really made me hungry to make that happen. So as difficult as it may have been to let go of Wrestling Sheet, I haven't looked back on the decision in the slightest bit. I had very much reached a ceiling of what I was going to do alone at Pro Wrestling Sheet, and I needed to give it to someone else and let them see what they could do with it as I moved on to something a little greater."
Satin explained what FOX Sports are looking for him in his WWE coverage. He noted that WWE.com keeps things mostly in-character, and he hopes to differentiate from that and show more of the real people behind the wrestlers. He also noted that he wants to be truthful in his coverage meaning that not everything will be a positive review of WWE.
"Well, I think that, similar to NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, they want me to cover it just like someone would cover one of those things, Satin explained. "WWE.com is very kayfabe. It's all in character stuff. There's not usually a lot of behind the curtain kind of stuff. There's behind the scenes pictures, and there's things on the Network that are documentaries, but the coverage that you see from articles on WWE.com is pretty much in character. So my goal has been to differentiate the FOX Sports coverage because we are partners with WWE.
"So to differentiate the the content, I've really tried to stick with rooting everything in reality like I always did with Pro Wrestling Sheet. So when I'm doing interviews, I'm not doing in-character interviews with people. I'm trying to get to know the people more when I'm doing the interviews that I do every week on Thursdays that come out on the YouTube channel and all the social media channels. I really try to get to know the wrestlers a little more like Big E, Otis and Bianca Belair. I got a little more in-depth with them than I think than you would see from an interview on WWE.com or something like that.
"And so that's really what they want me to continue doing is just being truthful in my coverage, in the the weekly write-ups that I do for different shows or PPVs or whatever. It's not all positive, glowing reviews. There are times when I say I didn't like this, or I would wish I could have seen this done differently. They want me to be completely honest in my coverage, and that was something that really drew me to them because I like that they didn't want me to pull my punches or anything like that. They wanted honest coverage just like you would see from a regular sports reporter."
WWE Backstage is no longer a weekly program. However, Satin expressed his hope that he can still interview people like Renee Young and Booker T in the future when asked if we can see the people on WWE Backstage back on FOX Sports programming.
"I don't know. I would love to interview Renee obviously," Satin. "I think I've just been waiting for the right moment, but obviously, high on my list of people I want to talk to and interview. I've been waiting until her book is for sure going to come out, and I was gonna reach out. I figure out for sure I'll get a yes then if she's trying to promote her book. It just all depends on what's going on. I would love to interview, you know Renee. I would love to interview Booker T. I would love to interview Paige. I would love to interview Mark Henry, Christian."
You can follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanSatin. Ryan's full interview aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.