10 Things We Learned From WWE's Mae Young Classic First Round
4. Full Sail Can Still Be A Hot Crowd
WWE's Full Sail University crowds have come in for plenty of criticism over the past few years. Often derided for what many perceive as an overwhelming desire to get themselves over, they used to be defined by their boisterous smarkiness, but have now done a full 180, with recent NXT tapings creating deathly quiet atmospheres closer to a library than a wrestling show.
There were fears that the Mae Young Classic would go the same way, with the matches playing out to polite ripples of applause rather than the vociferous roars of old. Fortunately, this wasn't the case, and Full Sail was in fine form throughout.
The crowd were noisier than they've been in months, and their passion helped elevate several bouts to the next level. More importantly, there was no self-promotion, no "we are awesome" chants, and no hijacking the show. They didn't try to take over, and the shows benefited immensely as a result.
Both sides of this debate tend to go a little too far (particularly those who'd actively police how live crowds conduct themselves), but this sounded like a great atmosphere on tape, and was probably even more impressive in person.