If fans are being called "The WWE Universe", they need a larger presence on TV

[Ambiguous Turd]

When one thinks of a "Universe", they obviously think of a huge conglomerate. At least that is what I do.

Now, we have had a lot of proposed names for the Era of wrestling that we are now in, and one of the Eras proposed was the "WWE Universe Era" because that is such a huge part of WWE's language to their viewers on a weekly basis. Obviously, the Internet has decided to go with "The PG Era" however, as this is more appropriate to describe the Creative direction that WWE went in, as it is very much opposite of The Attitude Era.

But let's discuss "The WWE Universe", and the diehard WWE fanbase. I must admit that I sit there in amazement several times a week on how this so-called "WWE Universe" sits there in the arenas each week in absolute silence, as if they would rather be watching paint dry. That is the excitement level that this so-called "Universe" procreates.

So what needs to be done about this? Simple. The WWE fanbase was at its absolute best during the Attitude Era in terms of overall crowd excitement. And one of the very best things that the Attitude Era took advantage of through execution was "Crowd Participation".

I can rattle off several segments off the top of my head in which the audience actually participated in the show:

- DX's "Suck it" crowd response

- The Godfather's "Hoooooo train" crowd response

- Tiger Ali Singh would have Babu pick a "random" fan from the audience to do an extremely disgusting task each and every week

- There was the awful "What" chant from Austin (which I wish they would have never done, as we see the results today)

- The Rock referred to the fans as "The People"

- The crowd told "D-Von Dudley when to Get the Table"




These were the things that made the audience part of the show.

For the first time in ages, the WWE Universe was engaged on Raw this past Monday when Vince McMahon himself actually went into the crowd and talked with fans ... something I have never seen him do (or most certainly don't remember him ever doing).

The only problem was that he didn't do it long enough, and only for a couple seconds, and the responses weren't all that great. Despite that, because it was such a novel concept, it made for great television ... as he accused the fans of arrogantly "knowing what is better for business than he does".


We have another thread on that topic right here:

http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showthread.php?t=94794




However since he can't really push the envelope anymore because of the rating, he has to find other ways to produce interesting television, because putting on the same matches and the same scenarios every week just isn't cutting it.

I say that one of the best ways to do this is to engage the"WWE Universe" and get them more involved into being part of the show once again.

Vince has become so controlling over the past few years on his audience reactions, and as a result, very bland and subdued crowds have resulted all over the country.

This needs to change.

I think fans should be engaged on weekly TV on a regular basis.

And no, I am not necessarily talking about "plants" either. I am talking about taking advantage of Live Television and unrehearsed reactions of real fans out there to things just like what we saw on Monday. In other words, getting back to making the audience part of the show once again.

This could be accomplished by:

- Various crowd chants

- Spots done during matches where fans would ask a wrestler to do something (ala The Dudleys)

- Wrestlers who involve fans in weekly segments (plants or not)

- Unrehearsed interviews with fans from interviewers who may go into the audience for their reactions to something


If the fans of the WWE are going to be referred to something as large as "The WWE Universe" and be referenced several times a broadcast, its time they be offered opportunities to start playing a more pivotal role in WWE television.

What say you?

 

[Pepe Silvia]

The interviewing the fans thing is iffy. It'd have to be a taped segments. There's too much chance of a negative response. Will VKM even allow someone to praise Randy Orton and say Cena sucks anymore? Plus, there's always that rascal who'd just start chanting "TNA!" if they were approached. (And it's meee. :3)

Crowd responsive chants... They KIND of have those now. NOTHING like they used to, though. I'm pretty sure one happened yesterday. MVP starts out his whole "Straight up..." Then everyone shouts "BALLIN!" It's nothing compared to the old "GET THE TABLES!" spot, but... I don't know.

Gotta agree about the what chant. New heels trying to cut a good promo to get some heat and the little kids yelling "What?" is just... Grr.

 

[mister_b1LL]

I'm all for this. And from the proposed ideas you mentioned, I'm amazed by how easy it seems to get the crowd involved. I do think though that right now there are some wrestlers that do it. Everyone in the audience says Miz's "I'm Awesome" line before he actually says it (kinda like when The Rock says "If ya smellll....what the Rock..." and then the crowd finishes the line, "is cookin'?", Everyone says "Ballin'" as MVP drops the elbow, Cena gets people to say "You Can't see me" as he goes for the five-knuckle-shuffle, and everybody "Booms" when Kofi does his Boom Drop and sets up for TIP.

But there should be more. During the Attitude days, the crowd would get really hyped up when the match spills out into the audience. It would really make fans feel like they were part of the action. If you wanna go with even more crowd participation, a wrestler would tell one of the fans to give him a chair to hit his opponent with. ECW used to do this.

So to add to list, I say: Make the match spill out into the crowd more.

 

[Tastycles]

I think the opportunity is there still, to be honest with you, for the crowd to be involved. On a typical episode of Raw, we still get MVP shouting "ballin'", people joining in with The Miz, DX doing suck it, people joining in with Kofi during his leg drop, people shouting "you can't see me" during the five knuckle shuffle, Shawn Michaels tunes up the band. All of the other things - plucking the fan out of the audience, unrehearsed interviews etc. were either done by plants or aren't very wise. Plants are not audience members, they're employees.

The biggest problem isn't that the audience don't have the chance to respond it is the fact that they are on the whole completely apathetic these days. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that about 10% of the live crowd are IWC members. These people take it upon themselves to cheer for heels and to be completely independant of the rest of the crowd. They're obviously entitled to do that, but you are immediately down to 90% capacity.

The next thing is that wrestling is about 50% as popular as it was then. If we take that to mean that the current audience are about 50% less enthusiastic, then we have a further reduction. The final thing is that in the Attitude Era, the live audience was mostly young adults. Today it is mostly families. One of those groups of people are rowdier and more likely to cheer along because there will be more of them drinking alcohol in the arena. Guess which one.

I think there is probably exactly the same amount of this kind of thing going on today, but you can't get a disinterested audience to participate. Get them enthusiastic first, then they will happily join in, by adding audience participation now, you're putting the cart before the horse.