What’s the news?
According to Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez of Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE is now reusing crowd shots based on the reaction that they want portrayed on-screen.
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WWE has taken to showing members of their audience reacting to big moments in certain matches over the past few months.
The heart of the matter
Dave and Bryan spoke about this subject for a few moments on the episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that aired after Monday Night Raw this past week. Basically, the WWE is using reaction shots of particular audience members from different parts of the show, and recycling them to use during parts of the show where they don’t necessarily get the reaction they want.
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The Wrestling Observer Radio hosts mused that they are splicing images from earlier in the show into other segments – specifically naming Roman Reigns segments, in this instance – to portray a feeling of crowd excitement when the crowd may not be particularly happy with what’s going on.
What’s next?
We imagine that WWE will continue to use this tactic for all of its programming going forward.
Sportskeeda’s take
While it is completely within WWE’s rights to do this, it does look really shady to anyone who figures it out. As more diehard fans, we’re used to this sort of thing, and even worse – consider WWE piping in crowd noise during WrestleMania 32 to try and drown out the boos that the main event match between Roman Reigns and Triple H was receiving.
This is just another indicator that WWE is set in its ways and the promotion is going to stick with the direction that they think is best for business. It will not change course, as it did when crowds hijacked the shows before WrestleMania 30 in order to force WWE’s hand and put Daniel Bryan in the main event.
Creative minds don’t like to be told that their vision is being rejected by the masses. In this instance, instead of lashing out back at the masses, WWE is just completely sweeping the issue under the rug and refusing to acknowledge that it exists.
There was one specific crowd shot I remember very vividly from Smackdown Live this week. They cut to a man in a woman in the crowd, and it looked as if they just absolutely could not care less about what was happening.
Why should the fans react genuinely to the product that is being presented to them, when that reaction is likely to be switched out later, anyway?
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