WWF vs. WCW crowds

[tafkaga]

In my 1996 rewatch, one thing I notice is how the WWF crowds seemed to embrace whatever shit they were fed, while the WCW crowds were far less predictable, and were often 'meh' when, if you did the same thing in front of a WWF audience, they would get a pop.  Why do you think this was?  Was it a difference between north and south?  Or was WWF just that much better at getting their shit over?  

At Halloween Havoc '96, Roddy Piper does a surprise walk-in, and he gets a dull roar.  There's no energy for the surprise, almost like people didn't know who he was.  They did finally wake up a little bit during his promo, but you could tell it wasn't the live reaction that they were hoping for. 

It's not just one show either.  It was common fare in WCW.  They had a couple of months of solid story telling around Hogan/Macho/Elizabeth.  Elizabeth gets spray painted and spit on.  Macho and Liz reunite, but Macho is paranoid that Liz and Hogan are working together to swerve him.  Crowds are meh.  They have a really well booked match at Havoc.  Crowds are meh.

I feel like WCW had some good stuff that doesn't stand out to me because the crowds were low energy.  Flair beating Vader at StarrCade '93 stands out as such a highlight, largely because the energy of the crowd made it feel like a major highlight, but when that energy is missing, it really sucks the life out of the show, even when the match and/or the storytelling are good.

[Jindrak Mark]

I made a thread recently about Bret Hart's WCW debut and the most shocking thing about it was the muted crown reaction. This was basically WWF’s top main event guy of the past 5 years and just a few weeks after the Montreal screwjob which was one of the most infamous moments in wrestling history. On paper you would expect this to be an all-time pop but it just…wasn’t. It didn’t feel or sound like a big deal. It was in Charlotte, North Carolina too. A good wrestling city.

The Benoit-Booker best of 7 series I remember most of those matches being greeted with silence. A lot of great cruiserweight matches too. The crowds were amazing for stuff like Sting in 97 though or Goldberg and the Wolfpack in 98.

I think WCW also just had poor audio quality in general. I feel like a lot of times it was difficult to hear guy’s entrance themes for instance.

[tafkaga]

Jun 9, 2022 15:12:32 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

I made a thread recently about Bret Hart's WCW debut and the most shocking thing about it was the muted crown reaction. This was basically WWF’s top main event guy of the past 5 years and just a few weeks after the Montreal screwjob which was one of the most infamous moments in wrestling history. On paper you would expect this to be an all-time pop but it just…wasn’t. It didn’t feel or sound like a big deal. It was in Charlotte, North Carolina too. A good wrestling city.

The Benoit-Booker best of 7 series I remember most of those matches being greeted with silence. A lot of great cruiserweight matches too. The crowds were amazing for stuff like Sting in 97 though or Goldberg and the Wolfpack in 98.

I think WCW also just had poor audio quality in general. I feel like a lot of times it was difficult to hear guy’s entrance themes for instance.

Yep, but you could tell by looking at the crowd that it wasn't just audio quality.  The energy just wasn't there, but then sometimes it would be.  They were always hot for Goldberg.  Sting and Flair were always over.  But, it seemed that big WWF stars like Hogan, Macho, Bret, always had to work harder to get anything out of the crowd.  

WCW always seemed to bank on the idea that "X was a big star in the WWF, so he will be a big star here", but was their audience really so different than the WWF's that someone like Bret Hart coming in was not as big of a deal as they anticipated? 

[nickcave]

It was hard to tell what they would pop for but when they did it would be huge like Malenko unmasking at the end of the cruiserweight battle royale

[Brandon Walsh is Insane.]

I think their audio was always weird.

Plus, felt like you’re told to hate the company to the north, so you don’t want them coming in and beating “your” home grown guys.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

I think a lot of WCW fans at this time were new, drawn in by WCW as their first wrestling product. They didn't always know the WWF guys.

[chronocross]

I think it was the audio most of the time, for Roddy's WCW debut the crowd was standing and seemed more interested in hearing what he was going to say.

I remember reading some live reports on who got the biggest reactions at the time and it didn't across as loudly on TV.

[tafkaga]

Jun 9, 2022 17:56:35 GMT -5 Brandon Walsh is Insane. said:

I think their audio was always weird.

Plus, felt like you’re told to hate the company to the north, so you don’t want them coming in and beating “your” home grown guys.

My only issue with the audio explanation is that there didn't seem to be anything weird about it when Goldberg was tearing through guys.  The crowd was visibly and audibly hot, whereas with Bret Hart or Roddy Piper, the dull roar was perfectly consistent with a visibly dull and low energy crowd.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

WWF used to mic the audience in an amazing way. Watch someone like the Bushwhackers make a hot tag and it is an insane loudly pop.

I never watched enough WCW to really notice anything with them.

[Cry Me a Wiggle]

What’s the matter Sid, forget your scissors?

I said what’s the matter, forgot your scissors?