Crowd Etiquette.
 

I've always been one for smart ass chants from the crowd, most of the time I find them very amusing. Especially when they're shitting on match that deserves it or calling someone a name, whatever it may be. But after last night, chanting Husky Harris during Bray Wyatt's debut, I wasn't too happy with the smart ass chants. Thoughts?

What are the limits or boundaries of chants and crowd etiquette in your eyes?

Think about this, you're Husky Harris/Bray Wyatt whatever you want to call him. You spends years (I think it's been a couple years) reinventing yourself into a new character and you nail it, I mean in my eyes its the best character I've seen in awhile. You put all your hardwork and effort into it. You're finally making your television debut and when you do it's a great debut BUT the crowd continues to chant your persona from years back. TALKING ABOUT BEING PISSED OFF AT THE CROWD, I ALMOST FEEL BAD FOR THE GUY.

i feel like as long as the fans don't become physically involved in any way, they are well within their rights to chant anything they want. i may not agree with it (as in this case it could have a major downside for a potentially amazing gimmick), but what can you do? hope the next city isn't so terrible, i guess.

They should almost have Bray Wyatt achknowledge the chants and say something but not in a way that takes away from the gimmick

Maybe a reference to how "I lived in the darkness myself. Back in the day, you could say I was a bit Husky."

Perfect.

Maybe they did not like the debut? May have come off terrible at the event. It did not ruin the segment for me so I did not mind.

As long as the chants don't actively hurt the wrestler's gimmick or character, it shouldn't matter what gets chanted. The only real etiquette is not to chant anything that is going to make the WWE look really bad or have backlash in the public.

The crowd chanting "Sexual Chocolate" to Henry during his fake retirement speech or all the random chanting during the post-Mania Raw were all done in a fun manner. The "What" chants while being really annoying are usually used more against heels which is what the crowd has been taught to hate.

Stuff like the constant "Albert" chants were pretty bad since it ended up hurting the Tensai character and whatever the WWE planned for him.

The ones chanting Husky Harris were stupid obnoxious smarks. Straight up ruining wrestling for themselves

I found the crowd to be pretty annoying, but they didn't technically do anything wrong. If anything captivates even the most base masses enough, they won't shit on it.

Maybe "Husky Harris" is just easier to chant than the awkward, three syllable "Bray Wyatt"...

J.K... Fuck this crowd.

I noticed a growing trend with fans chanting "You tapped out" at faces. HHH, Kaitlyn and Velvet Sky are the three that stand out. All "emotional" moments (HHH considering retirement, the two women literally in tears) with the crowd being real assholes. Did the crowd turn heel and I missed it?

They're in the right to chant whatever they want... But if you can't get invested in something as awesome as seeing that debut live and would rather step out of the moment to do a lame chant to show everyone you're "in the know", then fuck you. You're clearly not there to enjoy the show as much as you are to gather with a group of people and compare the size of your figurative smark boners.

Sounds like the live smarks chanted something you would see as a joke on a forum like this. Now the forums smarks are up in arms because Bray Wyatt, who I know nothing of, is one of their "guys." Is it ok to bust on Ryback (Goldberg) but not Bray Wyatt?

The crowd doing stuff like that is what made the post-Mania show so "special" to people. Is it because the IWC doesn't like Sheamus and Orton? It really doesn't matter at the end of the day

Could have been worse. The smarter ones could have been chanting "I.R.S."

I don't remember the crowd really chanting it loudly at Velvet (I'm assuming you're talking about the Mickie James match) but in the other two examples, I think they were in front of crowds that were extra smark-ish and were cheering for Lesnar and AJ all match anyway so it wasn't really out of the ordinary for them to fuck with the face after.

I find the Goldberg chats at Ryback to be pretty lame, too.

The thing that bothers me the most isn't the crowd chants, but the WWE not acknowledging them. Wyatt making a reference to "Husky Harris" would be good, as would The King or JBL or something saying something about the "Goldberg" chants Ryback has been getting since forever.

I was mad for like 2 minutes, then I took a piss and resumed life.

With so much diversity of people with thoughts not like your own, you learn to block out some things.

http://blogs.e-rockford.com/willpfei...ptroopers2.jpg

There has to be some kind of respect at times, I think the reason why it was piss last night was with all the hype of The Wyatt Family coming, and people like myself wanting to take it all in.

Some things that grinds my gears are the disrespect of some cretins outside the arena around the hour or so before we all pile into the place. Some people need to control their kids in Rey Mysterio masks 619'ing disabled folks and smart asses farting on the railing as the talent strolls into the backstage area.

Bingo.

<font color=goldenrod>Same dickheads who wouldn't give Tensai a chance.</font>

not on the internet you don't

True, but at some shows I've learned to, not mastered it

Hey, I went to the last WWE event in Philly which was Raw two weeks before WM. I think Philly's reputation of being a hot, smark, crowd is outdated. The Raw I went to it was mostly families and gf's who didn't want to be there. Kids climing on me to see Orton. This is a PPV so maybe there will be more smarks but Philly really isn't the crowd it was 10 years ago.

These are the pieces of shit I always bitch about. I don't hate smarks. I like talkiing wrestling with you guys. I hate smarks who go to shows and try and get over with stupid shit like that. We finally get an amazing gimmick and this nonsense happens.

I liked the chants. But then again rasslin is serious business and I really let crowd chants bother me :roll:

Lesnar used to get Goldberg chants as well.

I hope they chant "WHAT" at Bray's first in ring promo.

Bray will then turn to Luke Harper and be all: "Are they chanting 'WHAT' at me?!"

Luke Harper: Uhhh... no.... they're saying... WYATT?!

Bray: Are you saying "WHAT?" or "WYATT"?

Fans: WHAT?

Fat Guy in Row 12: ... I was saying Wyatt.....

Every Wednesday night I'm saying BO-URNS

This is the biggest reason why that I hope that NXT doesn't get put on Network TV again. They put him on TV as a raw rookie and gave him a craptactual gimmick with no chance to get over and not wearing a shirt didn't help matters.

NXT should be kept on Hulu Plus so just the people who really want to see it will see it. The general audience doesn't need to see these new rookies stumble and fall on their way to becoming a Superstar. If you believe the reports Syfy wants NXT again.

It didn't really bother me when they chanted "A-Train" for Tensai because that gimmick worked. There was no need to repackage somebody we already knew and was somewhat over. They didn't think we'd remember him and they were wrong. They now have him in a somewhat of his Hip-Hop Hippo days with Scotty Too Hotty which was the worst part of his career to that point. Sure the chants might not have helped him get over as Tensai, but the gimmick was stupid and the fans did us all a favor in sabotaging it.

We'll have to wait to see if the next crowd chants Husky Harris. If they do all don't blame the fans blame WWE who put young talent on national TV with no real direction of their characters or anything. Hopefully Curtis and Brayy can get a shower to get the stink of NXT off of them before it's too late for both of those potential money superstars.

Went to a rasslin show in 2002, think it was a Raw house show, and soke guy was shouting out all the wrestlers real names, like it was really hilarious or he was some genius for knowing that b/c he had internet.

At least they gave Ryback a chance for a couple of weeks

Smarks being smarks really. I don't think it really affected the debut but it would be easier to acknowledge past gimmicks or chants and put a positive spin on them sometimes rather than just pretend nobody else can hear anything.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that the crowd should not break the fourth wall. We all know it's an act, but it really takes you out of the story when the crowd pulls some shit like they did with Wyatt. What happened to the suspension of disbelief? It's OK to boo the faces or cheer the heels, because you're just reacting to what you enjoy. When the crowd is chanting "Goldberg" at Ryback, they are not saying "Ha! This guy used to be Skip Sheffield!", they are just comparing him to someone who came before him and did something similar. They are still letting the character exist within that universe.

But chanting some guy's old gimmick name at him is just disrespectful, and takes everyone out of the act. If you meet the guy for an autograph after the show, feel free to discuss his old gimmick if you want to. But when you chant "Husky Harris" during a show everyone knows is staged at a guy who we all know is playing a character, you're not being clever. You're being an asshole and ruining it for everyone.

With that said, I won't lose any sleep over it, but it does annoy me when it happens.

Like I have said before, if you pretend it's real , you will have more fun. The fourth wall chanting is cute for a while, but people are going over board with it. It makes it unenjoyable for people that watch wrestling the way it supposed to be.

I really hate people sometimes, who do they think they are, ruining my wrestling stories!

those people have lost hope and we should be helping them, by taking them out back and shooting them Old Yeller style.

I'm not exactly surprised, but one could have expected that over 40 posts into this, nobody has mentioned this.

You know what's responsible for a lot of this kind of thing? ECW. That's where this kind of thing began. You watch the Rise & Fall of ECW DVD, Paul Heyman speaks fondly of how the crowd was such a part of the show that they could make or break a guy based almost solely on their reactions. That's where it became cool for the fans to see themselves as more in the know than the guys in the ring. What WWE needs to learn from this is that the model of piddling a guy around for a while, then pulling him back and launching him out again under a new label without the fans having something to say about it. I don't recall anyone complaining much when fans were chanting "Albert" when Tensai debuted, or when they chanted "you can't wrestle" at Khali.

And this is what sums it up:

You're basically admitting that you're okay with it as long as it's someone you don't care about, but they better not do it to someone you like. As much as everybody wants to suck CM Punk's dick over his "shoot" promo leading to the "my contract is up and I'm leaving with the belt" storyline, it worked because it was a reaching out to a fan base that had gone rogue regarding this guy. Same thing with RVD's title win vis a vis "IF CENA WINS, WE RIOT." Everyone is ready for some fast furious fapping when WWE acknowledges this behavior and goes with it, but when it goes against something they like, bring on the butt-hurt.

And I STILL don't get why everyone is so hard over this Wyatt family thing.

They took a guy who was a former Intercontinental Champion, a solid fixture on the show for quite a few years, and who is a part of the Undertaker's legendary Wrestlemania streak, wrote a bunch of Asian shit on him and expected the fans to basically accept him as a different guy. Wrestling fans don't like having their intelligence insulted and they show it. The "Husky Harris" chants aren't quite the same here, this is basically the fans saying "you're not fooling us with this, you know."

I don't think ECW is really to blame, it's the internet, we're all so much 'smarter' than we once were, casual fans can follow a guys career by looking at Wikipedia now. Its the bookers problem really though, the whole Tensai thing, I mean c'mon why acknowledge he was a former IC champ but just gloss over who he was, shit that like makes it destined to fail.

I guess I shouldn't blame ECW so much as acknowledge that this kind of thing was born there, and to a large extent encouraged there. It was probably stirring in other places prior to that but I think ECW is where it became an integral part of the shows.

I think Crazy Edgar said it best, and won this thread.

"What" ruined wrestling more than anything ECW ever did.

What didn't ruin wrestling, promos by numbers did that, guys who can actually handle the mic competently don't have any trouble with that chant.

Two favorite ones:

"Your irrelevant comments have been noted"

and

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/HyKPySrEdK0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Seriously. Even Mark Henry shrugs it off.

No Husky Harris chants during the Wyatt promo. The crowd behaved.

It's a really annoying trend. What bothers me is that I've seen a lot of people bitching about this who loved the post-Mania Raw this year. It's the same thing. People in the crowd caring more about trying to get themselves over. WWE makes it worse by acknowledging it. I dread next year's post-Mania Raw.

There's no reason to chant Husky Harris other than "lol look what I know". Wanna punch wrestling fans in the face.

What ECW did to ruin wrestling in terms of the fans was, and I've copying something Cornette said was, they pretty much pushed the limit so hard and so fast that their "big moments" became meaningless.

First a guy would go through a table, then a flaming table, then thumbtacks. Depending on how much credit you give them towards the Attitude Era, you went from having maybe "street fights" once in a while, to Foley getting thrown off a Cell, to now you can't top anything.

Same with the Punk's pipebombs. I remember saying this when he did it: it was friggen awesome, but you watch, they are going to beat this into the ground where even when he cuts a killer promo, it's been done so often that in the fans eyes it becomes just a run of the mill CM Punk promo.

That isn't something that can't be fixed though, the audience just has to be conditioned to accept a slower pace in the same way an older talent can come in and just work their spots and garner a reaction, it's simply down to booking. Having PPVs based around gimmick matches is far worse IMO than anything ECW did, they've taken a HITC match and removed most of its aura simply to score an extra 50K buys once a year rather than leaving it as their ultimate feud ending match for example.

Yeah. No longer is it "Holy ****! Hell in the Cell!" or "**** yeah! Elimination Chamber!", it is just "Oh, it is that month of the year"

:yes: This combined with the horrendous booking and writing in the last 5-7 years has hurt my enjoyment and entertainment so much more than anything ECW, any smart marks or crowd ever did.

If anything, this is just further proof that WWE should NOT nationally or regionally televise or promote their developmental system/brand. It also shows that they shouldn't call up guys to t.v., put a shitty gimmick on them and when it flops, try to repackage them later. It's just piss poor management, planning, writing and booking.

Do the fans still chant "what" at everything?

They did it to Brad Maddox last night.

Hey I totally agree. In other news, nobody should ever heckle comedians because they might hurt their feelings!!!


Face it, wrestlers are ENTERTAINERS. The good ones should be able to feed off the crowd and improvise. You're doing a LIVE show, if you can't handle it when things deviate from script then you're probably in the wrong business.

No, people shouldn't heckle comedians because it's fucking retarded and no one came to see an audience member try to be funny.

No, but seeing comedians who aren't total hacks totally own hecklers is arguably one of the better experiences of going to a comedy club.

Wrestlers can't go around smacking the shit out of fans anymore.

That was provoked though.

*rasslin

goddamn if this isn't the most awesome post from you ever.

Agreed. A comedian should be owed a free punch to the heckler's face whenever someone heckles them.

If only there were any comedians here to discuss this further...

I think Narc said he was going to give stand up a try, is that what you were hinting at?

i think he was talking about Arnold HamNegger

#1-wwf-fan does comedy, guys. :roll:

CTS, too.

Smark is a meaningless term. There is no "Smart" mark.

The ones that think they're smart are the easiest to work. I love them.

That's exactly whey they are called smart marks you jackass.

I have to come back to this thread just to say, again, that the entire premise for its existence is retarded.