How WWE WrestleMania 36 Superstars Solved The Problem Of Empty Arena Silence

The Boneyard and Firefly Funhouse matches had no hangups in breaking all sensible reason of what a wrestling match is, and because both packages were so ludicrously offbeat, it's hard not to appreciate what they tried to do. They took the opportunity to weave stories from a more cinematic angle, and as a result, there was a whole lot of talking. Bray, Cena, Styles and The Dead Man all had their fair share of lines to learn.

However, these were not the only examples of increased dialogue at WrestleMania 36. The empty arena matches also had a truckload of in-ring talking, the impact of which wouldn't have been quite so distinguishable in a full-capacity setting. Yes, of course there has always been talking in wrestling... It's not new in principal. Verbal taunts add to the atmosphere, and the more you can hear, the better. Yet during WrestleMania 36, the big in-ring voices made them clear, you could hear every word, and it added a wonderful theatrical dimension to their presence in the show.

Possibly the best example of this was the bout between Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins. Owens has always been extremely noisy in his matches, but in this case, he and Rollins made in-ring dialogue an art form. Their back and forth exchanges spun a narrative, provided drama, and rendered the viewing experience a great deal more personal for the viewer, high risk manoeuvres or otherwise.

Further examples could be found during Daniel Bryan and Sami Zayn's banter-laden standoff, the heated bickering between Baron Corbin and his referee, Bayley's endless taunting of her opponents, and the F-Bomb-spiked finale to Edge's beating of Randy Orton.

In doing so, and given that we were presented with a whopping seven and a half hour show, there was hardly a hushed silence to be found, and certainly nothing near the awkward tumbleweed moments of the past month's Raw and SmackDown episodes. It was pretty damn remarkable, all things considered, and it played a big part in keeping the segments slick during otherwise drab circumstances.

Let's make it clear that we don't want empty arena shows to continue because we don't want the current global situation to prevail. Yet in these turbulent times, wrestling was able to add an energised sense of clarity to an old convention, which played its part making the night special. It's fair to say that the majority of superstars utilised the opportunity to gab some extra drama into their WrestleMania moments, and we the audience will be forever grateful that they made the effort to do so.