Since it's not safe to pack a large number of people into an arena or auditorium right now, many entertainment productions have canceled, or have continued in a weird manner without the usual studio audience. If you've watched the late night shows or the town hall meetings, you are probably impressed by how much the energy from the audience added to the usual show. Now imagine that in pro wrestling. While other sporting events were canceled, the WWE went ahead with Monday Night Raw in an empty arena. But they had fun with it. Paul “Triple H” Levesque joined the commentary team with plenty of jokes about the situation.
The wrestlers followed suit. Bayley, the dastardly women’s champion, and her buddy Sasha Banks worked the nonexistent crowd as they walked to the ring. Nikki Cross tried to get a crowd chant going. The Miz and John Morrison used the absence of an audience to talk themselves up without the risk of getting booed. (Triple H’s deadpan response: “It’s amazing how comfortable Miz and Morrison are without crowd noise. It’s like it happens all the time.”)
The episode culminated in the already-legendary faceoff between semiretired babyface turned bonafide Hollywood star John Cena and his current rival, demented children’s show host (yes, you read that correctly) Bray Wyatt. Without the roar of the crowd yay-ing and booing behind it, the clash between Cena’s steely hip-hop Superman persona and Wyatt’s Joker-fied madness felt uncomfortably intimate, which to be honest is exactly the way it should feel.
Read more of this madness and see clips from the show at Vulture. -via Digg
See more clips at Uproxx.
(Image credit: WWE via YouTube)