Posted in: Sports, TV | Tagged: impact, impact wrestling, sports, The Creep, the north, tv, wrestling

Impact Wrestling Aired a Match with Piped-In Crowd Noise Last Night

Published Wed, 06 May 2020 08:35:43 -0500

Impact Wrestling tried something new last night. Wrestling companies have been handling the pandemic in different ways and to varying degrees of success. WWE has filmed matches in an empty building with dead silence and no crowd, and that's been a little boring… even more boring than WWE usually is. On the other hand, the company has had success with cinematic matches such as the Boneyard Match between The Undertaker and AJ Styles at WrestleMania or the Firefly Funhouse match between John Cena and Bray Wyatt. And it looks like they'll be doing the same for the Money in the Bank ladder matches this weekend.

The official logo of Impact Wrestling.

AEW has filmed their shows in crowd-less buildings as well, and without a crowd, it suffers from the same issues. But for most shows, they've used wrestlers as the crowd, and that has made a big difference in making the show feel more alive. AEW is returning to Daily's Place in Florida for a live show tonight, and though there's unlikely to be a crowd, the state of Florida has said that's allowed now, so it's only a matter of time before AEW and WWE both bring crowds back to some degree. But what about Impact?

Impact Wrestling has also been filming empty-building shows, but on last night's Impact, they tried something completely different. The North faced a team of jobbers called The Creeps in a match from Canada. This match also made use of cinematic aspects like heavy editing and some special effects, but what set it apart was that the whole match featured piped-in crowd noise. Actually, it would be better compared to a sitcom's laugh track, except with cheers and chanting instead of laughter.

It was done for comic effect, which helped it feel less cringeworthy than it could have. It's definitely not something that could work for all matches, but in this instance, it wasn't bad. Check out the video below and see for yourself.