Matthew Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 What’s your favourite type of crowd at a wrestling show? Favourite you’ve been a part of? Favourite you’ve watched on TV, wishing you were there? Wheres the first “smart” crowd that you can remember? Watching the Brock Ruthless Aggression show, and it’s upto WM20, and that’s the first time I can imagine a smart crowd being so vocal. Any before that, that you can think of? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King Of Swing Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 The crowd when Mankind won his first WWE Championship is up there, for me. That fucking pop when Austin's music hits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 For me it's any crowd that is genuinely invested in the product and wants to get involved in a real enthusiastic fashion. It can add SO much. I loved being part of the MITB crowd as that felt like the most excited UK WWE crowd I've been a part of in YEARS. They can be terrible for hijacking the show and doing wacky things but so often that was because the product itself wasn't that engaging. But they gave us a hot product and we enhanced that even further. Before that I think my favourite crowd was the HBK/Cena one. You'd think a match that long would kill people off but they really kept everyone engaged. A real masterclass. But yeah - noisy crowds FOR the product. Not for themselves. Always. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 I'm not sure if it's been said much but wrestling crowds have been great lately. I think we're getting into a time period now where the hijack shite is starting to look genuinely of a bygone era. It's probably a combination of the product getting better in WWE, AEW still being babyface as an actual company/entity and generally just people post-pandemic wanting to have a good time in an often dark world. But everything has seemed a lot less cynical for awhile now. It doesn't really matter anymore if guys like Reigns and Punk get cheered when trying to portray heel characters because they're so good at it that it just works anyway, and you can comfortably just take the cheers as being for the legacy. There's nobody I can think of right now who is getting the 'wrong' reactions so much that it sours the shows in the way Reigns got for years without it ever really been as threaded into the product and OK'd as the boos Cena got. And then you have countless examples of amazing heels who the crowd seem to just be dying to enjoy the right way through booing them unmercifully now. Take a bow, Christian Cage and Dom Mysterio. The crowds rule right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted July 31, 2023 Author Share Posted July 31, 2023 For me, I think that the best reaction crowd I’ve been a part of is Hardy’s return at Mania 33. The roar of the crowd was just insane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kamran Posted July 31, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) IYH 16: Canadian Stampede is my all-time favourite show, great card with a fantastic crowd: Edited July 31, 2023 by Kamran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted August 1, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted August 1, 2023 13 hours ago, DavidB6937 said: But yeah - noisy crowds FOR the product. Not for themselves. Always. 100%. I'm a bit of a grumpy git about some crowd habits (I have to concede I'm fighting a losing battle on "ONE FALL"), and I get frustrated when I see audiences so wrapped up with a cute chant or song that they're actually missing part of the story of the match (though in some cases that's on the wrestlers not adapting to circumstances). My favourite thing to hear from an audience is people genuinely rooting on a wrestler, shouting things like "come on X" or "you've got this!", as if they're genuinely willing them to win a match. More than any amount of chanting, that tells me that the wrestlers have done their job well and sucked people into the story of the match at hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted August 1, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted August 1, 2023 The Puerto Rico crowd from a few months ago was one of the best I can remember. They turned a good show into a great one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapnut Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 American Alpha beating FTR for the tag team titles at NXT Takeover Dallas is my favourite live event memory. The place absolutely exploded. Complete strangers were high fiving, it was just pure joy for a popular team winning, everything good about wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted August 1, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted August 1, 2023 15 hours ago, Matthew said: What’s your favourite type of crowd at a wrestling show? Loud, and that understands within reason their part in the show e.g. cheers, boos and don't act like dickheads with "smart" chanting. 15 hours ago, Matthew said: Favourite you’ve been a part of? Fucking hell, now you're asking. Two that stand out straight away are (a) the sheer unbridled patriotism in support for dear Smithers against HBK at One Night Only and the absolutely nuclear fury when he was defeated and (b) Sumo Hall going fucking bonkers desperately imploring Naito to finally win the big one in the G1 final in 2013, which of course, he did. Although weirdly enough and on a much smaller scale, the reaction inside the Academy in Manchester when an unannounced CCK showed up at the end of a Progress show to confront British Strong Style was deafening and crazy levels of excitement, although I probably should strike that one from the record as I have no doubt somebody involved has since been outed as a wrong 'un. York Hall going insane for Kurt Angle post-TNA was pretty special too. 15 hours ago, Matthew said: Favourite you’ve watched on TV, wishing you were there? Canadian Stampede and it's not even close. Bret was my hero. Honourable mention would be MSG when Triple H came back. 15 hours ago, Matthew said: Wheres the first “smart” crowd that you can remember? Does Albany cheering for Sid dumping Hogan out of the 1992 Rumble count as smart? Otherwise, maybe portions of MSG cheering for Stone Cold at Survivors 96 despite him clearly being positioned as the "bad guy" and the hero Bret Hart returning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 3 hours ago, air_raid said: Does Albany cheering for Sid dumping Hogan out of the 1992 Rumble count as smart? The fans cheering heel Sid over Shawn Michaels, too. Even cheering "We Want Sid" during the losing his smile promo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King Of Swing Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 Speaking of "smart" crowds, I remember watching Wrestlemania 2 for the first time and being shocked at a bullshit chant following Mr. Wonderful and Muraco going to a double count out. Didn't think that was a thing that far back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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