8 Things We Learned At WWE Live In London

While this final point might feel like the most obvious it is also, demonstrably, the most important. Empty arena wrestling should never have been allowed to become the norm for over a year and it's honestly a black mark against promotions and fans alike that we allowed it to happen.

If your local independent show could put the whole thing on ice until some fans were allowed back into a room, then WWE and AEW could have as well.

I didn't want to put too much of a personal editorial voice in here (partly it's against our style guide but, mostly, it didn't feel like it needed it) but I've been apprehensive about events of this size since everything in the UK began reopening. While we do absolutely need to try to return to a sense of normality, I caught Covid-19 watching the European Championships back in July, and spent the better part of a fortnight feeling about as weak and unwell as I ever have, so my instincts have been to avoid unnecessary exposure.

But, provided they're done safely spectacles like this aren't unnecessary. The rewards they offer the soul can simply not be recreated in an echoey training centre or faked with digital approximations. A crowd organically rising and falling with the narrative of a live event is one of the greatest cultural touchstones we have as a civilisation, and to finally get back to one of this scale was life-affirming.

Yes, it was only a WWE house show but, in the context of the last 18 months, that's still a hell of a thing.