How will HHH/Roman play when we're not in NXT's backyard?

[gr1990]

So, yet again WWE got the opposite reaction to what they were going for with their Rumble plan (albeit not to quite the embarrassing extent of the past two years), but as we've seen before, a 'big four' pay-per-view crowd in an established smark city bares little relevance to the general live crowd response to a performer or storyline (especially now they spend more time than ever in the Midwest and Mid-South). Will WWE be able to pull off the illusion that they've actually given people what they wanted or will even the polite, provincial family crowds tell them it sucks? My guess would be we'll get the same largely-positive-but-way-more-muted-than-a-Wrestlemania-main-event-program-should-be reactions we got with Reigns/Lesnar.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Hershey, PA will love it. They're the crowd that usually ends up boosting these spluttering face runs.

[Urethra Franklin]

We talk a lot about certain crowds hijacking shows, but another big problem is crowds that are entirely dead.

I'm sure the WWE doesn't love smark crowds cheering for whom they want, but at least they make noise.

As for HHH/Reigns, I think you'll get the desired response in most cities.

[Rolent Tex]

It'll play fine outside of HHH Country. Besides being the NXT Messiah, in just about every Orlando PPV I've been to (or in last nights case, my friends went to), Trips either wins a big title or manages to lose triple threats without being pinned. (Eat that pin Cena...screw your awesome Rumble return). Orlando is basically Trips' North Carolina.

[Deleted]

I wonder when the tipping point will be when "smark crowds" become the majority? Its got to happen at some point - WWE's slowly been losing the battle with getting the crowd to react the way they want them to in more and more major markets. At a certain point the "smark crowd" will just be their audience, if trends continue /DiscoStu.

[darkjourney]

Hope they go to Philly and get tore apart.

[RI Richmark]

Jan 25, 2016 19:22:09 GMT -5 darkjourney said:

Hope they go to Philly and get tore apart.

Like last time?

[Jiren]

Just go to Corpus Christi, They won't boo

In fact they won't do anything, A show at Corpus Christi has the atmosphere of an Empty Arena match

["Cane Dewey" Johnson]

Jan 25, 2016 19:17:56 GMT -5 @personman01 said:

I wonder when the tipping point will be when "smark crowds" become the majority? Its got to happen at some point - WWE's slowly been losing the battle with getting the crowd to react the way they want them to in more and more major markets. At a certain point the "smark crowd" will just be their audience, if trends continue /DiscoStu.

I think we've kind of already reached that saturation point, when smark simply because a mark with a decent data plan, in which WWE's audience has shrunk since, say, Lesnar's WM XX moment, but that more and more people are connected to the I part of the IWC through things like social media, social networks, and mobile devices.

[thecrusherwi]

Maybe they'll come to Wisconsin more now. I've been to shows in Milwaukee and Green Bay and they seem to cheer for all babyfaces like it's 1987.

[the2ndevil]

Jan 25, 2016 19:22:09 GMT -5 darkjourney said:

Hope they go to Philly and get tore apart.

The last time they were in Philly, Roman won the title to massive cheers and got a "You deserve it" chant from the crowd.

[paywindah]

Reigns will get cheered the next month or so because most Raws are in markish towns, but then they go to Chicago and east coast cities for Raw in March and the booing will resume until Mania.