5 Ways WWE's Actually Better Without A Crowd

1. The Promos Are Now High Art

Ask any non-wrestling fan on the street to do their best approximation of a wrestling promo and they will immediately turn everything up to 11 and do some cliche-riddled hybrid impersonation of Randy Savage and the two rhino goons from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Pro-wrestling today though is almost unrecognisable from the pro-wrestling most people have in their heads. Physiques have changed dramatically, in-ring work is now genuinely one of the most impressive physical feats in all of sport, but nothing's as different as the work done on the mic.

Everyone's far less bombastic on the mic, but the live crowd still responds to the nuance of it all as if Hogan's just cupped his hand to his ear. Occasionally this is a jarring tonal disconnect between performer and audience, and sometimes it ruins what they're saying completely.

The recent clip of Bray Wyatt telling John Cena what to expect at WrestleMania, and Edge traveling 17 hours just to get face to face with Randy Orton, were two of the best spoken segments seen in WWE for years, and it's no coincidence they both happened in an empty arena.

In front of a crowd there would have been more pacing around, more call and repeat, more long pauses to let the crowd heat up and cool down, but without them it was pure theatre. It brought out the best of the wrestlers, and the best of the storylines.

Wrestling is not better without a crowd, but some of the wrestlers are.