Plants and Twitter

[George Steele's Barber]

Last night's Raw crowd really got me thinking. While the show was great the crowd made it better. Unfortunately, I feel like that crowd was an anomaly and not the current standard. I think the chants were the result of a few loud and creative guys who came up with great stuff that the rest of the crowd could embrace at the appropriate times. The rest of the crowd embraced it and had a better time because of it.

Again though, I don't think you are going to get that with most of your crowds. Most crowds will want that experience but the audience won't have the leaders to create to fun, funny and easy chants at the appropriate time.

Here is where my ideas comes in:

1) Plants - WWE should consider putting plants in the audience to stir up chaos. A few young guys who are pretty knowledgeable and very loud. Basically hype men like Flavor Flav who are just there to engage fans more in to the action. This may not be the most organic way of building a more fan friendly product but nothing in wrestling is truly organic.

2) Twitter - A couple of years ago when the Celtics were going deep in to the NBA playoffs Bill Simmons, ESPN writer brought up the idea of creating a Twitter account for live Celtic's games. When certain players on the opposing team had the ball or were shooting a free throw the idea was that he would send out a Tweet with a chant that the fans would viciously belt it out. I'm not sure if he ever went through with it (I could see the NBA be very disapproving) but it probably could have worked to shake up the other team and give the fans a more united experience.

WWE could do something similar. Set up a Twitter account under the guise of being the fan's guide of knowing what to chant and when to chant it (I.e. For Lord Tensai, "Grow out your back hair!" ). Much like the plant idea this could help get the crowd get more engaged and even united. It could also give WWE more control over the audience and help promote the guys they want to promote. Remember it only takes a few people to start a good chant.

What do you think? Is this too cheap and not organic enough to work? Do you think WWE can build off of last night's crowd or are we going back to the crowd that sits on their hands the whole night? Will "Yes! Yes! Yes!" last longer than Daniel Bryan? Who would you want to create a chant for and what would it be?

 

[Psyclone]

won't work... that crowd was amazing... It was the best crowd I've heard in years... Honestly it's the only raw that I still have saved on my DVR and I'm actively re-watching just for the crowd responses.... The only reason why it won't work is because crowd's are amorphous... They aren't the same from place to place... You get different people with different ideas in each one... Plant's only work to start something if that's what others nearby are thinking... If you don't have the crowd's ideals at heart they won't chant and all you'll get is the lone voice of someone shouting "YES YES" or "this is awesome" with no one joining in... (you get this on raw nowadays...)

Now as for the "twitter" approved chants, that's just going back to the WCW days where they taped nitro at Disney and had signs for "cheering" and signs for "booing" and dissuaded any true wrestling fan from attending because they wouldn't do that... The WWE already does enough with the "enforcing cheers or boo's" with smackdown by piping in crowd noise... At least there they're covering for wrestlers who arent as over yet... The moment they start directing chants however is the moment any true wrestling fan goes against script and either A) goes silent thus ruining ANYTHING WWE wants.. or B) reverses it and cheers the bad guys and boos the good guys...

WWE wouldn't want that and as a fan neither should you.

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

From what I saw at Mania and read about Raw, I think the Miami crowd just made some new fans in the IWC. Their chants of Daniel Bryan and his orgasm calls doesn't seem like something WWE would propagate during an Orton match. But it happened. Fans were a little shell shocked as to how he was treated on the card.


Anyhoo, I always believed that WWE must've had plants in places that they might be iffy about in response. Twitter is another weapon of privacy destruction and is ferociously used to update fa

 

[George Steele's Barber]

won't work... that crowd was amazing... It was the best crowd I've heard in years... Honestly it's the only raw that I still have saved on my DVR and I'm actively re-watching just for the crowd responses.... The only reason why it won't work is because crowd's are amorphous... They aren't the same from place to place... You get different people with different ideas in each one... Plant's only work to start something if that's what others nearby are thinking... If you don't have the crowd's ideals at heart they won't chant and all you'll get is the lone voice of someone shouting "YES YES" or "this is awesome" with no one joining in... (you get this on raw nowadays...)

I completely agree with you about how much that crowd made that show. However, I think the "Yes! Yes! Yes!" chants are a perfect example of a small minority of the crowd driving the masses. I think you give the fans too much credit. They may differ from town to town but they are basically sheep all desperate for the next big thing. They want to take part in whatever seems exciting or fun. I don't think most of that crowd went in thinking they were going to make the show about DB. In fact many (non-SD viewers) may have not even known what they were referencing.

Now as for the "twitter" approved chants, that's just going back to the WCW days where they taped nitro at Disney and had signs for "cheering" and signs for "booing" and dissuaded any true wrestling fan from attending because they wouldn't do that... The WWE already does enough with the "enforcing cheers or boo's" with smackdown by piping in crowd noise... At least there they're covering for wrestlers who arent as over yet... The moment they start directing chants however is the moment any true wrestling fan goes against script and either A) goes silent thus ruining ANYTHING WWE wants.. or B) reverses it and cheers the bad guys and boos the good guys...

WWE wouldn't want that and as a fan neither should you.

Great points about WCW but my thoughts on using would Twitter would be to give the illusion that a fan or fans are driving the chants, not the WWE. When I presented these ideas I was not speaking from a fan's perspective, none of us want to know that we are being manipulated, I am speaking from a business perspective. But with that there is a great deal of risk if the fans find out WWE is using these tactics to manipulate their experience that may create a backlash.

Maybe the WWE should just bring back the Spirit Squad and let them get the crowd going.

P.S. - I am not sold on these as ideas, I just want to present them and hear dissenting opinions as well as ideas on how to build off of Monday's crowd. If the product is not going to get better, WWE should at least find ways to create the illlusion that the product is amazing.

 

[harrythem]

I completely agree with you about how much that crowd made that show. However, I think the "Yes! Yes! Yes!" chants are a perfect example of a small minority of the crowd driving the masses. I think you give the fans too much credit. They may differ from town to town but they are basically sheep all desperate for the next big thing. They want to take part in whatever seems exciting or fun. I don't think most of that crowd went in thinking they were going to make the show about DB. In fact many (non-SD viewers) may have not even known what they were referencing.

I was lucky enough to be at the entire Wrestlemania weekend and honestly, I can tell you the "Yes" chants were in full effect, en masse, for the entire time. from queueing up to get in Axxess, HOF, Mania and Raw, it took over the whole weekend. At first it was no doubt just a few hardcore fans starting it but, from my personal point of view, I liked the DB gimmick anyway and the chants were easy and kinda cool. At Raw it just seemed the done thing.

Still feeling proud to be part of such a great atmosphere, really made a top weekend even better!

 

[Peoples_Champ]

The first idea is brilliant and I would be extremely surprised if WWE didn't already do this. They can have enhancement talent in mic'd up sections leading chants and cheers with the people around them. From what I hear about fans who attend shows, there's a suspicion that WWE does this anyways.

The second idea is not so great. It would be forced and counterproductive to having an organic chant. Besides, you don't want to encourage people in the arena to be checking their smartphones while matches are ongoing.