10 Things We Learned In The First Week Without Wrestling Crowds
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again?
There are perhaps few wrestlers in the world as instantly prepared for working without live audiences as Chris Jericho.
The former AEW Champion would ordinarily spend half his time entertaining wrestling crowds and the other playing live to Fozzy devotees, yet his unshakable and at-times-improbable ability to get his stupendously stupid sh*t in ensures his ability to pop even the quietest room.
On the first ever empty arena Dynamite, he was expertly deployed as a commentator, offering his white hot whimsy for some all-important light relief. Prior promos and video packages have suggested that he'd be able to do the same should AEW need months of this stuff, and they may well do.
WWE will need to lean hard on their slickest professionals too. As of last friday's SmackDown, the company led the way for both major brands by presenting a show that was at times many things and others very little but was at least something. Astute and somewhat admirable, Raw followed SmackDown and AEW Dynamite followed Raw and now SmackDown's here again for more from what will surely be remembered as the most awkwardly experimental period in wrestling history.
But if those are the long-term reflections when this spell for the industry and world hopefully passes, what have been the immediate takeaways from all of these temporary measures over the last seven days?
10. WWE Very Clearly Don't Know What To Do About WrestleMania
The staring contest between Vince McMahon and Tampa's local authority over the state of WrestleMania already seems a million or so years ago, but the push and pull there foreshadowed more to come for this seemingly inevitable (yet entirely improbable) event.
When news broke before Monday's Raw that the 'Show Of Shows' was going to be a Performance Center supershow, there were conflicting emotions of confusion and panic. Confusion for how on earth the alleged biggest event of the year could remotely function in an empty gym, and panic at the prospect of staring at that empty gym for over seven hours.
Both of those quibbles were addressed the very next day when the company dropped their second bombshell of the week - WrestleMania would run over two days for the first time ever. Rob Gronkowski got the honour of breaking the news in this - his first task of what could be a snakebit career as a WWE Superstar. He was going to host, see, and there was more. At some point on Wednesday, Dave Meltzer trickled down the news that there were more venues in the conversation, presumably for health, legal and aesthetic considerations.
If all of that sounds too much hassle for its own good, it's because it is. The company (or its fearless leader, at least) seems determined to hit this WrestleMania deadline for reasons unknown, and there'll exist the doubt that it'll even go ahead until the main event of the second night concludes.
Hopefully the iPhone cameras have been rolling all this time - it'll make a great Network documentary, at least.