Smart crowd: good or bad for the WWE

[Psykohurricane55]

After what happen on raw last night, I'm starting to think that smart crowd are getting a little bit too annoying and that at some point, if those smart fans continue to try and put themselves over, it might be something could have fan not wanted to watch the product based on the reaction of these fan. But I'm asking you guys what to do you think, is the smart crowd good or bad for wwe.

 

[Con T.]

What, exactly, did this smart crowd do?

Like, I'm sorry, but if you're looking for a time to say fuck off to the fans, this isn't the crowd.

What, they disrespected the divas? The same audience that Bayley and Sasha has eating out of their palms?

Bad crowds aren't a problem. Wrestlers who don't know how to work the crowd are more the issue. This isn't even the worst Raw crowd of the last year (that would go to the Post-Wrestlemania Raw)

 

[sjdigitall]

Smart crowds are best, it requires the talent to work hard to earn their respect thus developing the talent even more and man they are loud and actually react unlike alot of casual crowds who really dont seem like they want to be there, most likely because they are being dragged there by their 6 year old. People werent caring about the Divas match because they dont care about "Divas", which is what Vince is putting out every monday on RAW, they care about Womens Wrestlers as they are shown in NXT.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

What makes a smart crowd different from a regular crowd?

All they did different was hate on that diva's match. Justifiably so; that match was awful. This is the same crowd that praised Sasha vs. Bayley.

As for the inevitable heels were getting cheered argument, that's just how times are. No one wants the never lose, never do anything wrong face anymore. This isn't the 80's. People want the anti-hero or cool heels. Such as Stone Cold, The Rock, or the n.W.o.

 

[mlp420]

One of the worst things that ever happened to the WWE. People complained about long term booking before, it's only going to get worse with this new style of adapting to social media reactions every week. It's almost like a cross of EWR and American Idol. It's especially unwatchable if you're someone who doesn't have the taste most smarks seem to have, because they're hijacking everything.

 

[mlp420]

What makes a smart crowd different from a regular crowd?

All they did different was hate on that diva's match. Justifiably so; that match was awful. This is the same crowd that praised Sasha vs. Bayley.

As for the inevitable heels were getting cheered argument, that's just how times are. No one wants the never lose, never do anything wrong face anymore. This isn't the 80's. People want the anti-hero or cool heels. Such as Stone Cold, The Rock, or the n.W.o.

Regular crowds don't give rockstar receptions to wrestlers 90% of WWE's audience have never heard of, for one. As far as heels getting cheered, it's not a response to the character presented. Characters like New Day get cheered. Bo Dallas was a favorite of the smart crowd. It's more a case of people attempting to be ironic and convince people they're smarter than the average bear than anything else.

 

[Really?]

Trust me, kids, there was nothing smart about that crowd. Look, cheer for who you want, jeer who you want, but when you start chanting "we are awesome"....nope, you're just idiots.... you paid money to chant for yourselves.....hell, even the "boring" chants were fine by me....unnecessary, but it's an opinion about the show and the people performing....

 

[Reflection]

I love smart crowds. They offer a different type of response to the talents than what is the usual norm. Most of the time, it's the talents' fault when they get jeered. The smart crowd won't cheer or boo someone based on what the WWE told them to do; the smart crowd will make decisions based on their own likes and dislikes. If they don't like something, they make it clear to Vince and co. that your booking/talent sucks. They are not sheep and the WWE is not their shepherd.
Also, they are not the only ones giving the talents a cold response; the 'normal' crowds' "What?" chants after every sentence of a promo are dismissive as well, but no one minds those because they are used to it... Well, maybe Paige and Bella Twins would take offence to that too, because they cannot take criticism.
Smart crowds are not necessarily "bad;" a bad crowd is like the one during a Hall of Fame ceremony a couple of years ago. Those are some exceptional cases. But mostly, a smart crowd is like a breath of fresh air, and I'd prefer them over a dead crowd (like the Old school RAW crowd last year) any day.

 

[wrestler36]

it's a double edged sword. I absolutely love when someone like Blue Pants gets such a loud reaction. But Reigns is still getting booed and it seems more out of routine than actual hatred. I can understand the lead up to WM when fans wanted to see Bryan in the main event again, but that was months ago.

 

[JoeMallard]

It's good and bad. It's good, because it actually shows how popular certain people are. It's bad, because it takes away from the experience.

As for last night during the diva's segment and match, that audience wanted to see to the woman that had one of the best matches all weekend at NXT Takeover. Sasha puts on a match of year contender, but gets totally shafted at Summerslam, apparently she had a stinger from the Takeover match, so that might be a reason. The smarks know that Nikki is still holding the title out of WWE's hatred for Punk and AJ. When Team PCB were by themselves, the fans were not crapping on the segment, but as soon as Team Bella came out, all hell broke loose.

 

[BuriedByCena]

I LOVE smart crowds. It makes the product a million times better. It makes the shows entertaining and fun to watch.

When WWE has the normal casual silent crowd...i tune out. I have the TV on but I ignore everything unless Brock, Seth, or KO is on my screen. Everyone else, I tune out because the crowd doesn't care either.

But when the crowd is hot all night, I get excited. I NEVER watch Divas matches and hate them, but that crowd made it fun to watch because they did the wave and called it boring...because it was. I laughed and loved seeing how upset the females were getting. Paige looked like she was about to cry! LOL

"We are awesome" chants are hilarious. Having the entire crowd sing John Cena suuuuuuuucks is hilarious.

Getting the wrestlers to react because you upset them is entertaining. I love when people get underneath Big Shows skin with the please retire chants.

Most wrestlers have horrible interractions with the crowd and basically ignore them. But when they react to smart crowds, it because entertaining.

I shake my head at anyone who hates smart crowds. You basically are a sheep/wrestling is still real to me defender. "Waaaah, the crowd is being mean and should only cheer who wwe wants regardless if they put me to sleep every time I see them". "Waaah they ruining the product/think of the children". "Waaah I am indoctrinated, drink the wwe kool aid and you HAVE to respect Cena because he kisses babies".

Grow up. Have fun. Wrestling is at its best when fans care and cheer/jeer who they want and not who wwe wants to force down your throat.

 

[berlinbrawler]

When I was a kid I almost always thought the heels were much cooler and I used to think that it was a shame that this audience of sheep just kept automatically cheering the good guys and booing the bad guys. I felt the heels didn't get the appreciation they deserved.

Fast forward to the present and I got my naive wish. The audience has smartened up to the point where they no longer care about good guy or bad guy, but cheer whomever they do indeed appreciate.

And it sucks. The audience cheers when they are supposed to be outraged and they boo when they are supposed to be ecstatic. They ruin segments. They ruin characters. It's like Christmas and the two year olds are all like "Sure. Santa Claus. Right. Whatever."

That being said, it's the WWE's own damn fault. They went out of their way to make sure everyone knows it's entertainment. They themselves educated the whole damn population by showing behind the scenes interviews and publishing wrestlers' autobiographies. The result being that no one cheers or boos based on who is a face or a heel anymore.

Of course it would be better if the audience wasn't too smart for it's own good. How wonderful would it be to hear someone unequivocally booed out of the hall again (other than Cena)? Or someone get cheered like the second coming of Christ (for something other than beating on Cena)? The current climate makes this almost impossible, because now and forevermore, the audience knows enough to just cheer whomever they like.

The audience has changed and cannot be unchanged again. The old ways were better, yes, but they are gone for good. Bringing Kayfabe back wouldn't help because the cat is out of the bag now. A new audience like that would require a vastly different product. New challenges. New rules. The old Good Guy vs Bad Guy formula is too simplistic now. The Attitude Era somewhat went in that direction. The current day product does not. They are behaving as if the audience is still from the early 90s. Good luck making the next big babyface star in this climate. As soon as someone is getting that particular push the crowd turns on him, because they feels he is getting handed stuff he didn't earn.

It's pretty much a colossal mess now and unless the WWE drastically changes it's approach this is going to be the norm from now on.

 

[MMK]

Wrestling has no one to blame but itself for the crowds being too smart for their own good. They pulled the curtain back so much that it smartened up the audience on how everything works backstage and in the ring but the bookers still expect to pull the same tricks they did years ago and get the same effect despite the fact that they've told the audience how it's done.

In other words, the fans got smarter but the bookers and their bag of tricks remained the same.

 

[justinept]

"I NEVER watch Divas matches and hate them"

You hate something that you admittedly never watch. The irony here is that you consider yourself smart. Willfully ignorant is probably a better word for people that make statements like this. Someone with intelligence would take the time to watch something, and then decide for himself whether or not he liked it. You? You'd rather just assume that you wouldn't like it... and then call yourself smart for the hell of it.

"I shake my head at anyone who hates smart crowds. You basically are a sheep/wrestling is still real to me defender."

So you think people that cheer the faces and boo the villains are 'sheep.' That's an interesting take on things, but I do love the usage of the word "sheep." The John Cena sucks chants have been going on for a decade - the singing of it to his entrance theme has been been going on since WrestleMania 29. But even though it filters from big city to big city - the New Yorks, Chicagos, Philadelphia's, etc - that doesn't qualify those fans as 'sheep' in your book, does it? Why? Because you agree with them... because in reality, you don't dislike sheep - you just dislike sheep that aren't in your flock.

 

[HORRORHOLIC]

It depends. If they chant things that will help certain underappreciated talents, boo terrible storylines and stuff like that it's awesome. But when they are clearly being assholes just for the sake of it it ruins everything. Everyone was complaining they wanted longer and better diva matches, now the whole revolution thing is in full motion and they crap all over the girls. The more that happens the faster they're gonna go back to meaningless 2 minute matches instead of the awesome matches we've been seeing in NXT!!

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Smart crowds can be good or bad, it all just depends, but what it depends upon can be just about anything. As I mentioned in the thread regarding the Brooklyn fans' reactions during the Divas match on Raw this past Monday, it was both classless but also an example of some Divas needing to grow thicker skin.

There's nothing automatically wrong with being a "smart fan" in my opinion, all of that post on these forums are "smart fans" after all, but I think that when you become too "smart" for your own good to such a degree that you let it affect your enjoyment is when things become a big problem. If you spend your time watching wrestling, whether it's WWE, TNA, ROH, New Japan, some indie show, etc., to primarily point out flaws, critique what goes on & how you'd have done things differently, all you usually wind up doing is ruining things for yourself. That's not to say that you should just mindlessly lap up anything that's put on your TV or that you should just embrace every single angle, storyline, match & wrestler; you can still easily talk about some aspect of what you saw that you didn't like while still being a fan and talk about what you did enjoy.

A crowd like the Brooklyn crowd is difficult for any wrestling company to prepare for because it's sometimes impossible to determine how they'll react. For instance, the Divas have all gotten very positive responses from the fans up until Monday, yet the Divas received a good response from the SummerSlam crowd the night before in the exact same arena. Also this past Monday on Raw, I was expecting that crowd to give the 8 man tag team match the business because it had a good number of frequent targets of smarky audiences including Orton, Sheamus, Big Show and Ryback, yet the match was also well received as was the singles match Sheamus had against Orton at SummerSlam the night before.

Sometimes, the reactions of such crowds can genuinely help companies determine in which direction they should go in terms of who gets pushed, storylines, angles, etc. while other times it seems as though those crowds just decide to dump all over a show just because it feels like it. There are also other times when really hot, smarky crowds are genuinely there to enjoy the show rather than try to hijack or sabotage segments of it. So yeah, smart crowds can sometimes be all over the place.

 

[Messiah]

Smart crowds are idiots. Just look at some of the people in this thread, they don't sound very bright do they? Always talking about how WWE feels and they think they know how they operate... Smart crowds are very rowdy and they make a lot of noise which always comes off well on television, but when they chant random shit during matches because they seem to be bored, they're just embarrassing themselves and the product they paid to watch. If you're that bored sitting in your seats go to the concession area, buy some merchandise.

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

WWE relies a bit on crowds reaction. Thats why they are trying some ideas on house shows for example to see how crowd reacts before they try it on live TV. If you wouldnt get genuine crowd reaction, product wouldnt be that enjoyable because crowd reactions can shape a better show. And thats why wrestler are learning to "work" crowds so you can see things like when Rock says "Finally The Rock has comed back to..." or Rollins when he mentioned on last RAW Yankees and Bruins(I think, not huge fan of basseball so not sure) so he would get some booes. So genuine crowd reaction is pretty important in wrestling bussiness because bussiness resides on fans who express what they like and what they dont. Kinda like focus groups with product some company wants on market.

Trouble wih "smart crowds" is that sometimes its not too genuine. For example I understand booing Reigns for RR thing because crowd felt he was somehow "undeserving" and that WWE pushed him too soon. But booing Reigns now(think it was Summerslam when I heard booes) is just some trend thing. Same with Divas Revolution and RAW thing. Would understand that you dislike it when its same thing for weeks with no story and nobody goes after Nikki Bella because title thing, but doing waves like in a football game is just stupid. So as much as its genuine crowd reaction and can help develop product into better one, sometimes its just stupid.

Other thing is that WWE just cant handle crowd properly sometimes in WWE favor. Stewart could said on RAW that he did it for people. He would get more face reaction and Cena could come out, said something in his defense like he did million times before and still AA Stewart. Would gain much better reaction. But then you wouldnt get Flair thing. God forbid that you couldnt get Flair with Charlotte and get some kind of story for at least one Diva in that "Divas Revolution" clusterfuck of story(for now).But no, its pretty important to get Flair to say it doesnt mather because some fans cant get in their head that it really doesnt mather if Cena breaks record in scripted sport where Cena is face of the company for 10+ years for a reason. Because Flair would change so much how people feel about Cena if he says that Cena is deserving lol.

 

[JoeMallard]

Smart crowds are idiots. Just look at some of the people in this thread, they don't sound very bright do they? Always talking about how WWE feels and they think they know how they operate... Smart crowds are very rowdy and they make a lot of noise which always comes off well on television, but when they chant random shit during matches because they seem to be bored, they're just embarrassing themselves and the product they paid to watch. If you're that bored sitting in your seats go to the concession area, buy some merchandise.

If it was Team BAD instead of Team Bella, the fans in attendance would have cared about what was going on! The Bella's, Brie especially cause Nikki has improved immensely, are what is wrong with the diva's division. It doesn't help knowing that they have slept their way to the top and are banging arguably the two biggest stars of the PG era.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Vince can hardly complain, after all he's the one who fostered it by dropping the curtain to the level he did.

But there are times it becomes too much, Monday was NOT one...

Who said the Diva's were getting dissed? Nikki & Alicia... two of the old guard who aren't getting a pass for being "tacked on" to this angle. Also remember the story "broke" about Cena using his influence to stop what the fans really wanted.

They weren't dissing the Diva's, they were making clear to Foxy & Nikki they want them to move out of the way... BIG difference.

 

[Headman]

I think the term "smart" is misused. "Smart" as in smartened up to the business? That's every crowd these days. The real word we're looking for is "Troll". I read at least one person here finds troll crowds to be amusing, but I can't remember a time I've ever tuned in to RAW or ordered a ppv to see what kind of wacky chants the crowd is going to pull out of their collective rear ends. I don't see what's so smart about chanting "JBL" or "We are awesome". Of course there are people here making excuses for them. Those crowds are made up of people like the ones who visit this site, spout off the same BS about John Cena or Roman Reigns or whoever it is the internet has decided to blame for their vanilla midget of the day's perceived lack of success. It's a stale act. As a person who used to call New York home I wouldn't be caught dead at a show in NYC because I would hate to be surrounded by that many morons in an enclosed area. The commentators are wrong to put this crap over. "They paid their money to have a good time!". Is that really true? Or did they really pay their money to get themselves over on live tv? If I pay money to see a rock concert is it ok for me and a bunch of my idiot friends to start a "BOOOOOOORING" chant during the bands hit songs because I'm tired of them? I'm not saying the WWE should censor these people or kick them out of buildings. I'm saying it's a pitty that these people who are supposedly adults can't behave themselves as well as the children in skittle colored t-shirts they like to pick on so much. Wanna be heard? Want your opinions to matter? Stop chanting "We are awesome" and start buying merch.

 

[timothy26]

It's really a tough one because I don't want to see crowds censored or made to leave but on the other hand sometimes I find the crowds unreasonable. I loved the energy of the crowd at NXT takeover Brooklyn & The following taping in Brooklyn and the fact that lower card and mid card talents are getting over and cheered, not just the main event stars. I feel as if the Reigns and Cena booing sometimes goes a little bit too far - I'm not the biggest fan of either but to dump a ton of heat on them seems pretty unfair especially in Cena's case. He hasn't held a world title in a year and has had a run of mostly good to great matches in 2015 (bar a couple with Rusev). He seems to be content enough with his current spot which alot of the major stars would not accept (for god's sake, Flair still thinks he could be a main event star) which I think alone deserves at least a small measure of respect

 

[whoopin' ass]

for the wwe? bad. Anywhere else, they would be a good thing as it forces the company to up its game. Think of movies - in general, movies have become more sophisticated over the past 100 years as people have gotten to know more about them and how they are made. Nolan's Batman trilogy is miles ahead of the Adam West Batman movie. The audience being smarter forced the studios to improve how they tell stories and make better movies. Now that doesn't mean that new is better - Casablanca is still a fantastic movie, same with Wizard of Oz. They just worked. Wrestling should be no different. Because we are more aware of what happens, it should mean tighter moves, better storylines, etc but wwe is fighting that. Instead we are getting shlocky soap opera storylines, less moves being used, and angles not written for entertainment but for stuff happening behind the scenes (Nikki Bella) and when people complain, you are labelled the dreaded "smart audience". A lot of the time, all that smart audience is doing is reminding wwe that they can do better. When they get something good, they have no problems with it - like you said, they loved the NXT women's match but that is totally outside of the main wwe storyline which is why they did what they did on Monday even though it has one person from that match. Think of movies - if you liked Travolta in Pulp Fiction, does that mean you have to like Battlefield Earth just because he is also in that? You can still like him and hate the movie. I find it very funny that when it comes to wwe, you are expected to either like everything or nothing - if you are a fan, you have to think everything they do is great all the time. Smart audiences remind people that isn't true. Problem is wwe has that mentality that we are not part of the business therefore we don't know how it works and smarks are just a bunch of annoying idiots so they play a stupid game with them. They won't listen and try to up their game, they feel they are always right and you should just listen to them which is fine as they own the company and can do what they want but don't sit there complaining when the sales are down and ratings are not what they used to be.