Raw Spoilers for 5/19/14

[Go2Sleep]

Adam Rose has a shitty group of friends. There were like 20 of them and they all just stood there while BIGG HOSS Swagger sucker punched their guy and laughed in their faces. I'm pretty sure Swags would lose a match to the bunny these days.

 

Cena/Harper was real nice, though. Harper's high-flyer sequence ruled and running Sister Abigails for everyone.

[cwoy2j]

Adam Rose has a shitty group of friends. There were like 20 of them and they all just stood there while BIGG HOSS Swagger sucker punched their guy and laughed in their faces. I'm pretty sure Swags would lose a match to the bunny these days.

 

Cena/Harper was real nice, though. Harper's high-flyer sequence ruled and running Sister Abigails for everyone.

 

To be fair, the bunny is probably the most intimidating of the bunch.

[offspring515]

When the Bunny was dancing I saw his abs and I was shocked by how ripped that bunny was. Maybe it really is Justin Gabriel....

[odessasteps]

I remember when a crowd was just there to be entertained, not get themselves over.

#oldman

This is you (and to be fair, everyone else bitching about an engaged and active crowd) being wrong.

It's not about getting THEMSELVES over, (barring the very rare "we are awesome" chant.) It's about latching onto stuff THEY LIKE and putting that over, because history shows that it's the only way to make sure WWE gets that message, (and even then the batting average ain't a thousand.)

Again, as an old man, i liked it better when, even when the crowd is active, its better when they play along and cheer the faces and boo the heels "like they are suposed to."

I mean, ive always been a heel fan, but never want to vocally put over the heels in a match.

[piranesi]

When the Bunny was dancing I saw his abs and I was shocked by how ripped that bunny was. Maybe it really is Justin Gabriel....

 

I was outraged that the costume was a shirt and pants. 

 

BUNNY OUTFITS ARE ONESIES!!!

My god, Stu Hart is rolling over.

[Cristobal]

I remember when a crowd was just there to be entertained, not get themselves over.

#oldman

This is you (and to be fair, everyone else bitching about an engaged and active crowd) being wrong.

It's not about getting THEMSELVES over, (barring the very rare "we are awesome" chant.) It's about latching onto stuff THEY LIKE and putting that over, because history shows that it's the only way to make sure WWE gets that message, (and even then the batting average ain't a thousand.)

Again, as an old man, i liked it better when, even when the crowd is active, its better when they play along and cheer the faces and boo the heels "like they are suposed to."

I mean, ive always been a heel fan, but never want to vocally put over the heels in a match.

I remember when message boards posters were just there to talk about wrestling, not put themselves over. #disgraceful

[Charlie M.]

Count me in as someone who zones out when Bray does the singing bit.  Hopefully there will come a day when WWE won't beat everything somewhat unique into the ground until it becomes lame.

[Hokuto in Winter]

 

 

I see absolutely nothing wrong with a crowd having fun and doing chants they like and singing and dancing during matches. The WHAT! chants are dumb but they fill in the white space when people talk and have that pause. Like someone said earlier -- an easy way around that is to have guys get some more acting chops and not take that pause break to move on to the next narrative bullet point. It's really not that hard to get past that with some acting training.

 

 

Onos not the dreaded 'white space' I know when I go see Shakespeare performed I'm glad the actors have the chops to stop the audience screaming 'what!?' during a soliloquy.

[Cristobal]

Ironically, actors in Shakespeare's day would indeed have to deal with loud, unruly audiences.

[APO]

Just catching up with the show now.

1) If you think Bray Wyatt's boring, I don't know what to tell you. We'll forever disagree on what is awesome. His opening promo was again killer. He had all of England eating out of his hand. He has it. The singing bit isn't just some superfluous crowd-response DO YOU SMELL GIVE ME A HELL YEAH NOW I DO THE WORM Pavlov's Dog thing. It's him reminding everyone he's a God, and a wrathful one at that.

 

 

No one's really calling him boring, it's just that him singing the song every single week to goad the fans into doing it is really, REALLY tiresome.  Also, as someone who has worked in a church for a good bit of time, I've heard the song well into the triple-digit times and my tolerance for church music is already extremely low to begin with.

[Greggulator]

 

 

 

I see absolutely nothing wrong with a crowd having fun and doing chants they like and singing and dancing during matches. The WHAT! chants are dumb but they fill in the white space when people talk and have that pause. Like someone said earlier -- an easy way around that is to have guys get some more acting chops and not take that pause break to move on to the next narrative bullet point. It's really not that hard to get past that with some acting training.

 

 

Onos not the dreaded 'white space' I know when I go see Shakespeare performed I'm glad the actors have the chops to stop the audience screaming 'what!?' during a soliloquy.

 

 

What Shakespearean theater lets the audience scream anything at the performers?

[THEmanWITHnoNAME]

It's hit me that one of the wrestling things I'm starting to hate is the whole "audience participation" schtick. It's like in the Attitude Era when everyone had a catchphrase and repeated the same spiel word for word every week.

 

I mean, the Bryan thing is awesome, but for a television medium we spend a lot of time being asked to watch/be aware what the audience is doing. I dunno...it's like I hate sports fans that do the "white out" or "black out" thing in sports stadiums and it'd be like if the announcers kept talking about it.

 

I guess what I'm really saying is that the Bray singing shit is killing him.

 

 

 

 

 

No...it's not...really...it's not.

[THEmanWITHnoNAME]

 

The crowd can die in a fire, though.

 

The crowd was awesome than any shitty american crowd...

 

 

English motherf'r...you speaking it and all that jazz.

[MORELOCK]

 

 

I guess what I'm really saying is that the Bray singing shit is killing him.

 

 

No...it's not...really...it's not.

 

 

Thanks for weighing in, brother. I can now suddenly enjoy hearing three entire verses of "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" three times a show.

[AxB]

What Shakespearean theater lets the audience scream anything at the performers?

 

Once upon a time, theatre and pantomime were the same thing. They didn't separate until centuries after Shakespeare died. So, the Globe for one.

 

Wait, do Americans know what Pantomime is? Or is your idea of audience participation theatre just Rocky Horror, where the fans might as well have scripts? Hang on... I've seen Hugh Jackman  on telly, and Neil Patrick Harris in the paper talking about being on Broadway and doing crowd interaction improv segments recently. 

[odessasteps]

I'd wager most people dont know that shakespeare was popular in high and low culture until the victorian era, when it became segregated away from the masses.

You can bet when touring companies performed in the Old West, there was plenty of audience participation and or heckling.

Whats your name, parnter?

Tex, ma'am

Well, Tex Ma'am, is that a ten gallon hat or are you just happy to see me?

#lilyvonschtupp

[muhammedboehm]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with a crowd having fun and doing chants they like and singing and dancing during matches. The WHAT! chants are dumb but they fill in the white space when people talk and have that pause. Like someone said earlier -- an easy way around that is to have guys get some more acting chops and not take that pause break to move on to the next narrative bullet point. It's really not that hard to get past that with some acting training.

Onos not the dreaded 'white space' I know when I go see Shakespeare performed I'm glad the actors have the chops to stop the audience screaming 'what!?' during a soliloquy.

What Shakespearean theater lets the audience scream anything at the performers?

The Globe

[Big Fresh]

Something weird is happening in this thread....

[JRGoldman]

Something weird is happening in this thread....

 

Not really. The Raw thread being terrible is pretty much par for the course. 

 

To weigh in on the crowd for a second, I feel like we will never see people just cheer and boo the action at a wrestling event ever again. Twitter and facebook are most likely the culprits. Every time I find myself at a show, I see a crowd of people watching a match, and when something big happens, they react viscerally for a few seconds before pulling out a phone or tablet. The chants are merely an extension of this. It's like a live hashtag or retweet. It has nothing at all to do with showing the WWE who or what we want to see and everything to do with trying to create a meme for the event. And honestly, if people do genuinely believe that they want to see what they are chanting for, their opinion shouldn't count because they often chant for Fandango, the announce team, and various dead wrestlers. 

[Matt D]

 

Something weird is happening in this thread....

 

Not really. The Raw thread being terrible is pretty much par for the course. 

 

To weigh in on the crowd for a second, I feel like we will never see people just cheer and boo the action at a wrestling event ever again. Twitter and facebook are most likely the culprits. Every time I find myself at a show, I see a crowd of people watching a match, and when something big happens, they react viscerally for a few seconds before pulling out a phone or tablet. The chants are merely an extension of this. It's like a live hashtag or retweet. It has nothing at all to do with showing the WWE who or what we want to see and everything to do with trying to create a meme for the event. And honestly, if people do genuinely believe that they want to see what they are chanting for, their opinion shouldn't count because they often chant for Fandango, the announce team, and various dead wrestlers. 

 

 

I haven't been to a sporting event in years. Is this like that for everything?

[Greggulator]

 

 

Something weird is happening in this thread....

 

Not really. The Raw thread being terrible is pretty much par for the course. 

 

To weigh in on the crowd for a second, I feel like we will never see people just cheer and boo the action at a wrestling event ever again. Twitter and facebook are most likely the culprits. Every time I find myself at a show, I see a crowd of people watching a match, and when something big happens, they react viscerally for a few seconds before pulling out a phone or tablet. The chants are merely an extension of this. It's like a live hashtag or retweet. It has nothing at all to do with showing the WWE who or what we want to see and everything to do with trying to create a meme for the event. And honestly, if people do genuinely believe that they want to see what they are chanting for, their opinion shouldn't count because they often chant for Fandango, the announce team, and various dead wrestlers. 

 

 

I haven't been to a sporting event in years. Is this like that for everything?

 

 

Pretty much.

I was watching Pacers/Heat while on the treadmill at the gym last night and spent more time fiddling around with Twitter to see what NBA media Twitter people were saying about the game than actually watching the game itself.

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

 

To weigh in on the crowd for a second, I feel like we will never see people just cheer and boo the action at a wrestling event ever again. Twitter and facebook are most likely the culprits. Every time I find myself at a show, I see a crowd of people watching a match, and when something big happens, they react viscerally for a few seconds before pulling out a phone or tablet. The chants are merely an extension of this. It's like a live hashtag or retweet. It has nothing at all to do with showing the WWE who or what we want to see and everything to do with trying to create a meme for the event. And honestly, if people do genuinely believe that they want to see what they are chanting for, their opinion shouldn't count because they often chant for Fandango, the announce team, and various dead wrestlers. 

 

This is true. However, when the crowd does react directly to the happenings in the ring it certainly is impressive. I have seen it on better indy shows and of course, a couple times on big cards - this year's WM w/Undertaker, for one. It now takes even more set-up in the booking as well as skill as a worker to do it. The crowds are conditioned to be hyper-aware of their status as consumers and observers and to be "cool" (in both the McLuhan and Fonzarelli senses of the word). An emotional connection with pro wrestling is hard to come by. The gut reactions of children, Cena fans and "marks" are mocked. These days it's OK to sit on your hands, report/record on your phone and/or react ironically and then later get emotional online about the bad booking. Your apocryphal hillbillies, kids and LOLs who go berserk at the show and laugh it off later (the opposite of your post-mod consumer) are looked down on, and that is wrong. You got more things right as a child than you realize.

BRING BACK THE EMOTION! React: laugh, cry, cheer, boo, let it all out! It's OK, we won't judge. Watch what is happening at the moment and live in that moment.  Cool folks, put down your phones. You have nothing to lose but your cynicism.

This is all dependent on WWE putting out quality stuff, of course. Support your local indies.

- RAF

[odessasteps]

Baseball live is tailor made for checking your phone. So much dead time.

[Cristobal]

Wah wah fucking wah.

So bored with people whose biggest complaint about wrestling is that the PAYING CROWD isn't doing what they want them to.

[truename]

Well it's a problem when that paying crowd doesn't seem to like wrestling. They like what they see on TV, the promos, the personalities and the big names, but when there's a match going on they couldn't care less. Maybe it's their first contact with live wrestling, when there's no camera tricks and shots to cover the punches and etc, so they can't suspend their disbelief to that point. In other threads people complain about dead crowds, I don't see a problem complaining about pseudo-hot crowds.

 

Also, they were just annoying. The twitter thing doesn't bother me, however chanting RVD and ECW in 2014 can strike a nerve.