6 Ups And 5 Downs From NXT TakeOver: Chicago

4. Ruining The Moment

roderick strong tomasso ciampa
WWE.com

If you’re going to have longtime tag team partners break up violently, what do you think is the best move? If you answered, “Show crowd shots of fans laughing and smiling,” you could be the next Kevin Dunn protégé.

As Tommaso Ciampa beat the holy hell out of Johnny Gargano at the very end of TakeOver, the camera kept switching to shots of “shocked” fans, except for the fact that several of the fans were half-laughing or busy taking photos with their smartphones. Sure, several had genuine shocked looks, but after the first 30 seconds, the shock was gone. Stick to the drama unfolding or show the larger crowd shots of fans chanting and yelling at Ciampa.

The repeated, rapid cuts to individual fans were ridiculous, jarring and stupid. It’s really sad to think that this is actually being taught as a tactic for filming a PPV.

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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.