'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
WWE had the chance to experiment quite a bit over the last year. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, fans have been completely absent from the main roster events aside from this year's WrestleMania.
In a few short weeks, WWE will have put an end to the ThunderDome as the company will begin touring again. Fans will be welcomed back with open arms. However, with that comes live reactions from the returning crowd.
Some storylines, characters, and matches have bitten the bullet thanks to a lack of fan interest, or rather, complete disdain from the WWE Universe.
With fans absent over the past year, WWE has gotten creative and taken a lot of risks with things that would never slide with a live fanbase in attendance.
For better or worse, it's time to look back at five WWE moments over the last year that wouldn't have worked with fans. We'll start with a pretty obvious one.
#5 RETRIBUTION runs wild in WWE
Okay, so "works" might not be the best word. Still, for several months, WWE was plagued by attacks from, what at first, was a mystery group. The Performance Center was attacked by over a dozen masked and hooded figures, laying people out and tearing apart the building. There was a point where they even threw Molotov cocktails at a generator.
And that alone would not have happened had there been any fans around. Taking chainsaws to the ring and threatening to main commentary? Daniel Bryan was fired for choking Justin Roberts with a tie.
But it got worse. Soon the group, dubbed RETRIBUTION, was cut down to four members and was eventually led by Mustafa Ali. Five NXT call-ups that the majority of the fanbase knew were "hidden" behind half masks.
Remember when Bray Wyatt showed up on the main roster and people began chanting Husky Harris? Yeah, imagine that but for every single member of this group.
While WWE would've been going for boos, they more than likely would've gotten complete disdain from most crowds. The only reason this was allowed to go on was that the company ignored any negative feedback they saw online.
#4 Whatever that Viking Raiders - Street Profits stuff was
WWE has had some stellar tag teams hit their roster in the past few years. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, the main roster isn't interested in tag team wrestling. Unless it's New Day or The Usos, tag team titles are usually more of an afterthought.
That was especially the case when WWE, for some reason, put their two top tag teams in a friendly feud. Then-WWE RAW Tag Champions, The Street Profits, began competing against The Viking Raiders in a series of one-upmanship. We saw them take part in stuff like basketball games, bowling, ax throwing, and mini-golf.
This lasted for months, and the final tag team title match was delayed when they began fighting Akira Tozawa and his band of ninjas.
It was goofy and downright wacky. Oddly enough, though, the WWE Universe began to look forward to their segments. The Viking Raiders and the Street Profits had some great comedic chemistry. Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins played the straight men to Ivar and Erik, who kept trying to bring their "Viking" traditions into everyday life.
At one point, this went cinematic as the Raiders and Profits finally went to war. They brawled around the arena during WWE Backlash 2020, leading to them eventually teaming up to take on the ninjas.
These interaction were surely not for everyone. While some of the fans loved it and others didn't want to be reminded of it. Myself? While some of the skits were good, moments like Ivar summoning a turkey leg with force powers like a Jedi looked childish.
This was just WWE having a little fun during the early months of the pandemic, and we can't really fault them for that. However, if fans had been in the building for all of those segments, especially Backlash, it would've fallen flat. At best they would've been booed for not having the Raiders and Profits in the ring for so many weeks, at worst they would've been dead silent.
#3 WWE presents... RAW Underground
For a little over a month, Shane McMahon took over the third hour of RAW. He'd introduce us to "RAW Underground," where superstars had MMA-based fights in a ring with no ropes or walls.
It took place in a storage room and seemed to be based around building up Dabba Kato. The man who would one day become Commander Azeez was McMahon's prized muscle.
RAW Underground was introduced on August 3rd, 2020, and Kato would go onto have a five-match win streak. However, that all came to a screeching halt when he was demolished by former WWE Universal Champion Braun Strowman in September. RAW Underground as a whole came to an end that same month. It wasn't even able to complete a full two months before it was shut down.
RAW Underground was a worked version of the Brawl For All which, for some reason, WWE creative thought would be good. With fans in attendance, would they have even risked it? Probably not.
#2 Firefly Funhouse, Boneyard, or any WWE match that was pre-recorded
With no fans around, WWE took advantage of not having to do everything live. With that, we've seen a large influx of pre-recorded or "cinematic" matches. WWE had dipped their toes into this pool before when they had matches at the Wyatt and Hardy compounds.
But this time around, WWE went all in on their concepts. The Boneyard and Firefly Funhouse Matches both caught the attention of fans and, to this point, are two of the greatest bits to come out of the pandemic era.
Genuinely, they were different, almost mini-movies filmed around WWE mythos and featuring four of the best talents on the roster. The Fiend, John Cena, AJ Styles and The Undertaker knocked it off the park.
The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever between Randy Orton and Edge was actually very good. Honestly, it was hard to live up to that kind of name, but the two really pulled off some magic there. That was thanks to, though, being able to do re-shoots of any spots that they'd messed up.
#1 WWE Men's Money in the Bank winner
So for sure the Money in the Bank match goes with the above number. But it's a bit more than just being a pre-recorded segment. WWE combined the men's and women's Money in the Bank ladder matches into one single bout. The competitors met at Titan Towers, and were told to fight all the way to the top to secure the briefcases.
Asuka, Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans, Nia Jax, and Shayna Baszler battled for one case while AJ Styles, Aleister Black, Daniel Bryan, King Corbin, Otis, and Rey Mysterio fought for the other. We got to see some pretty unique moments throughout, including Bryan and Styles fighting into Mr. McMahon's office.
The reason this gets its own number is because had we had another live MITB pay-per-view in front of fans, we would've had a different winner for the men's match. Otis wasn't able to climb up the ladder because he was too heavy. Each rung he stepped on would instantly break.
Instead, he caught the briefcase as it slipped through the hands of AJ Styles and King Corbin's hands. Otis went on to have one of the worst runs with the briefcase we've ever seen. After a little over six months, he lost it to The Miz when his partner Tucker turned on him at Hell in a Cell.
The fact of the matter is that Otis should not have won that briefcase, especially how he did it. Odds are, it would've been won by somebody else in the match, and he may not have even been involved. Had we had fans during the event, it may have saved Heavy Machinery from breaking up as well.
