Professional wrestling doesn’t work without the interaction of the crowd. If you need proof, just go back a few years and see how difficult it was to get through a WWE or AEW show held in either an empty, silent arena, or perhaps worse, in some futuristic Thunderdome with piped in cheers and boos. Some of wrestling’s greatest moments work because of the fan reaction. Get on YouTube and watch a “Stone Cold” Steve Austin entrance from the Attitude Era and the noise is so loud that it’ll give you goosebumps. Today, Dominik Mysterio became a star because of the insane level of boos he got when he turned heel. Still, fans can also be the worst part of wrestling, whether it be them being too quiet, chanting the always annoying “What?”, or now, cursing more and more to the point that Netflix and the USA Network has to drop the sound.
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Fans Are Making WWE Shows About Themselves
Steve Austin’s “What?” Chant Will Never Die
- It seemed like everyone brought a clever sign to WWE shows during the Attitude Era.
- Signs have returned to modern WWE after disappearing for many years.
- International fans love to sing during WWE shows.
Another great part of the Attitude Era fan reaction was seeing the literal thousands of signs in the crowd. It felt like everyone was bringing one and trying their best to be clever so that their sign could get on TV. During the Ruthless Aggression era, those signs fell away, and outside of being held up by little kids to profess their fandom for John Cena, you didn’t see them much. In the last few years, however, signs have been coming back and WWE has encouraged it. But with that has come so much more.
The “What?” chant, started over two decades ago by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, isn’t ever going away, no matter how annoying it is. A certain part of the WWE audience will always think it’s funny, even when it ruins what is supposed to be a serious or emotional promo. Even The Undertaker has gotten the “What?” chant! Lately, fans are getting more annoying. Some of it is a matter of personal taste. When WWE is held in international host cities, fans love to sing all throughout Raw and SmackDown. You might love it, while others find it so intrusive that it takes away from what’s happening on screen. That’s tame compared to how vulgar the crowds are. Everyone loves a good “Holy s**t!” after an insane spot, but it’s now going too far.
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Fans Are Cursing In Vulgar Chants
The WWE Crowd Is Forcing Shows To Be Censored
- AEW heels like MJF have led to more vulgar crowd reactions.
- Fans hoped Netflix wouldn’t censor WWE audience chants.
- The WWE Raw crowd chanted a vulgarity at Seth Rollins.
In the last few years, crowd chants that include the f-bomb have become more commonplace. This mostly started in AEW where, with a more adult audience and a slightly edgier product, cursing is a way to get under a heel’s skin. It’s no longer enough to chant “You suck!” Now, when effective bad guys like MJF are on the mic, a couple of thousand fans are chanting “Shut the f**k up!” And it has spread to WWE.
How many Raw and SmackDown promos did you see on the USA Network or Fox last year that were ruined because fan chanting caused the network to censor the crowd by repeatedly dropping out the audio until the cursing subsided? For thirty seconds or more you could lose what a wrestler or commentator was saying. Many hoped this would change when WWE went to Netflix, but as the latest episode of WWE Raw showed, it’s only getting worse.
On Saturday Night’s Main Event, Bronson Reed made his return from injury to join Paul Heyman’s new faction with Seth Rollins and Bron Breakker. On the May 26 Raw, Rollins attempted to explain himself and got the heel reaction he wanted, but it was way more than he could have imagined. After chanting “OTC” and “You sold out”, the crowd in unison repeated, “F**k you, Rollins,” with the audio being cut out to censor them. Pat McAfee tried to make a joke of it, awkwardly suggesting they were saying “Duck you”, but it’s not a chant WWE wanted to hear. You can tell this because in the official YouTube clip the crowd has been censored and McAfee’s comments are gone.
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WWE Needs To Find A Way To Change Crowd Reactions
Dave Meltzer Noticed What Fans Are Doing
- WWE Raw is still rated TV-PG with an arena filled with kids.
- WWE is considering telling fans not to swear at shows.
- Will a more mature WWE audience tone it down if asked?
Now, there’s always going to be cursing in wrestling, so to argue that there should be none whatsoever is ridiculous. What’s gotten out of hand, though, is how pervasive it’s become on a TV-PG show. You can watch Raw and listen to thousands of people chant “F**k” in the same shots that show little kids standing with their parents. An edgier product can be exciting, but this isn’t prime ECW here. It has gotten out of control, with fans chanting anything they want.
On the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer claimed that WWE is thinking about asking its audience not to curse at shows, saying:
“People have actually suggested this, of just like making an announcement of, ‘Hey, we’re here. It’s a TV show. It’s going all over the world. We want you to have fun, don’t swear because its going to ruin the TV show.’”
You might think that telling an audience not to swear will only make them do it more, to which Meltzer said:
“In the past, if they had done that, the audience would have then started swearing because they wouldn’t want to be controlled. But I think this audience is mature enough and smart enough and everything like that, that if you told them that, I think they might be okay with it.” (h/t WrestlingNews.co)
If something doesn’t change soon, fans might force WWE to go this route. Crowds have matured in some ways (you’d never see fans chanting that a female wrestler is a “hoe” today), but the collective urge to outdo themselves with the swearing is making it so frustrating to watch the TV product at home.
