14 Times Really Weird Sh*t Went Down At WrestleMania 32

It’s obvious to anyone who watched the main event last night: WWE engaged in a systematic, well-orchestrated and choreographed manipulation of the sound of the crowd’s reaction to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 32.

It’s likely that they were aware for quite a while in advance, just as we were, that Reigns was going to be slaughtered by the Dallas crowd at WrestleMania. Even the usually tame Detroit crowd savaged him on Triple H’s notorious beatdown segment on RAW six weeks or so ago, and things didn’t get any better on the last mile or so of hard road between here and there.

Firstly, Reign’s already loud, heavy and militaristic entrance theme was kicked up to earsplitting volume. Next, the crowd mics, used to amplify cheers and boos for the TV audience, was cranked down to a minimum to provide the appearance that the reaction to Reigns was less vehement than it really was.

It’s a trick WWE learned on taped shows like Smackdown: not only do they occasionally rerun promo, segments and matches that don’t work on the fly, they actively manipulate the sound of the crowd to ensure that the people at home see and hear the reaction they want.

They’re well aware that perception is reality: that live crowds mimic what they see on television, and that if they can skew the narrative and tell a different story, they can subtly change the reaction of the next live crowd, and maybe finally nudge the WWE Universe in the ‘right’ direction.

At WrestleMania 32, they weren’t subtle about it, the volume lurching up and down. There’s also some debate as to whether they might have recorded the pop for The Rock slightly earlier, and piped those cheers through the arena speakers for his kid cousin. That’s something the live audience will know more about than us at home, however.

As an aside, it’s baffling that literally minutes after putting over the size of the allegedly record-breaking crowd in attendance, they muted that crowd’s genuine reactions to try to spin the Reigns-hate for the people at home.