WWE Considers Copying AEW By Having Wrestlers In The Crowd And That’s Perfectly Fine

WWE recently issued a survey, via WWE Fan Council, polling fans as to whether or not they would like to see wrestlers in the crowd during empty-arena events.

WWE has stubbornly soldiered on across all programming with not a single person in the crowd, leading to overwhelmingly silent matches that require the wrestlers, ringside managers and sometimes guest commentators—namely breakout pandemic-era star Asuka—to go above and beyond in making noise in place of the crowd.

Having wrestlers in the crowd has been a staple of AEW Dynamite since Week 1 of the pandemic-impacted tapings, with AEW’s recent tapings at Daily’s Place at-times sounding like an actual crowd is on hand. Wrestlers in the crowd, especially with a ringside reporter interviewing the talent intermittently to remind fans that they’re more than just extras, has helped added a much-needed energy to the closed-set shows.

A prideful company, perhaps WWE has been too proud to succumb to the optics of copying an idea from its upstart competition. WWE has faced criticism for coming off as tone-deaf in its handling of the pandemic, as the promotion refuses to even mention the word coronavirus on-air. Not having wrestlers in the crowd makes it seem as if WWE is sticking to its hard-and-fast production rules despite being in the face of a pandemic. There is precedent, however, for WWE mimicking an AEW strategy as it moved the hard camera early during empty-arena tapings so it does not show the empty crowd.

Though AEW’s format has led to largely more enjoyable shows during the pandemic era, NXT has enjoyed its first two head-to-head victories over AEW in 2020 during the pandemic era. WWE NXT outgained AEW Dynamite in total viewers during the April 8 and April 15 broadcasts, where NXT garnered 693,000 viewers and 692,000 compared to 692,000 and 683,000 viewers for Dynamite, respectively.

While AEW Dynamite has since returned to its winning ways, this past Wednesday’s broadcast logged the lowest viewership in AEW Dynamite history with just 654,000 viewers as both shows also went head-to-head with UFC Fight Night: Smith vs. Teixeira.

Given the eclectic personalities in NXT, and for that matter WWE, having wrestlers in the crowd may not necessarily reverse WWE’s rapid viewership erosion—which is now an industry-wide concern as empty-arena shows continue. But with WWE programming, particularly Raw, now seeing historic lows as its new normal, experimenting with wrestlers in the crowd can only help.