6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (May 2)

3. That Crowd Sounds Familiar

The Miz
WWE.com

If the audience sounded a bit rowdier than it looked on Raw Monday night, you have only the ThunderDome to thank.

Ever since returning to live crowds, WWE has missed its ability to manipulate crowd reactions for every segment, controlling the boos, cheers and volume of everything for the past 10 months. As a result, we’ve seen them slip crowd sweetening noise into the broadcasts, as artificial cheers or boos have rained down on the ring while the fans in view of the camera are sitting there stone-faced.

Monday night, the boos were reverberating while Edge ranted, but only about one-quarter of the fans on camera were reacting. When Miz welcomed everyone to Miz TV, the singalong portion was deafening, louder than anything we’ve heard in years.

They even used enormously fake sounds in the video package recapping the Omos/Bobby Lashley arm wrestling match when Omos hit the All Mighty with the table. Like, really fake-sounding effects. Embarrassing stuff.

It’s not entirely unsurprising that WWE would try to augment crowd reactions, but lately, they’ve taken it to embarrassing levels, playing reactions so obviously fake that it’s almost comical and certainly duplicitous.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.