12 Times Crowds Actually IMPROVED Wrestling Moments

Wrestling, all over the world, is in a rough state. With venues still not allowing for any audience or spectators, only performers, the art form so many know and love looks more estranged from its old self than ever before. Those who decide to watch AEW, Raw, Smackdown Live, or NXT are left with performances that are can definitely be called professional wrestling, but an atmosphere that is flatter than the last sip of a forty ounce bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Sure it's still a beer, but without that fizz, it takes some stomach to keep down.

Fans are vital to how a match is even conducted, with wrestlers calling audibles, changing their tempo, and playing to the crowd to help establish their character. In short, fans are essential.

Sometimes though, fans go above and beyond their appointed duties of cheering the face and booing the heel. They give a main event a big-fight feel. They can put an exclamation mark on every move. They can even help tell the story better than the commentators on TV. Every triumphant return, dastardly heel turn, or realization of childhood dreams, nobody makes that moment more impactful than the fans.

Fan involvement in these moments did more for what happened in the ring than any of the wrestlers inside the squared circle.

CM Punk in 2011 heading into Money In The Bank began garnering something of a personality cult around him, becoming this lightning rod for all the hope and adulation of WWE's contrarian fanbase. He was set to face John Cena, who had a similarly magnetic property with the WWE universe, in that he universally drew the ire of hardcore fans.

When these two polar opposites clashed in front of Punk's hometown of Chicago, they created a maddeningly intense bout that had the fans at maximum volume from the very first note of Punk's entrance music. Even a blindfolded fan could tell how the match was going just by listening to the crowd, booing literally everything Cena did and coming to a fever pitch whenever Punk took the offense.

Cena could not do anything to escape the hate that Chicago showered him in. Similarly, Punk could have burned a Blackhawks jersey while telling people Michael Jordan is overrated, and fans would still have cheered.

When the three-count was finally made, Punk sent the fans into a rapture that would not be felt in that city until the Cubs won the World Series. He then thwarted a cash-in attempt by Alberto Del Rio and escaped through the very public that cheered him on to victory and buried Cena in boos, giving fans a validated feeling as they gave McMahon the finger.

Punk may have won the match, but it felt like just as much a win for the fans.