I've never understood the casual vs hardcore fan booking argument. Booking Lesnar over Joe is the "casual fan" appeasement route, but I've never once met someone who just up and stopped watching because of the outcome of a match. Casual, hardcore or otherwise. The booking doesn't matter enough to convince "casual" fans to just stop. If the show is entertaining, the outcomes aren't important.

Sure if years of shit story telling caught up to you and you watched some outrageous match and you said "that's it, I'm done" (like Kahli vs Taker kind of bad), then fine I'll entertain that it could happen. But it's not the match that ultimately lost you, it's the lack of entertainment leading up to it that lost you.

"Casual fans" want Lesnar not Joe. Casual fans want no champion for months more than they want Joe? I don't see how that can be true.

The most casual of casual fans, the people who didn't watch in 15 years but turned on the tv to see Goldberg don't matter to the bottom line. The people that look forward to seeing their favorite celebrities wrestle mixed tag matches at Wrestlemania don't matter. They aren't going to spend money on the network, buy tshirts or sell out arenas.

Squash Joe? Don't squash Joe? It's not about which fan base they are trying to appeal to, it's about some bigger picture story that they are working torwards. The picture doesn't always work itself out (injuries, "hardcore" fans fiercely rejecting the story, etc.), but it's not about instant gratification of one fan base or the other.