WWE WrestleMania 37: Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan embrace fans returning after flowering during ThunderDome

At WrestleMania 37, WWE will welcome fans to the main event on the live list for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, with 25,000 fans attending the two-day event at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. In the main event on Sunday night 1, Roman Reigns will defend the universal tournament against the Edge and Daniel Bryan of the 2021 Royal Rumble winner. While the three men had it impossible trips to the main eventThey had to navigate from being the main stars in the most special era in the history of professional wrestling.

Early in the pandemic, WWE took all the shows, including WrestleMania 36, ​​to the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. Eventually they would make transitions to the ThunderDome, with standard entrances and pyrotechnic displays crafted with fans who are almost involved in the video boards surrounding the ring. The ThunderDome was inside the Amway Center in Orlando for the first time before moving to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.

It was a unique emotion for Bryan – who had very limited appeal in the locker room – who was empty at the start of the pandemic during the WWE Performance Center fight.

“I can’t tell you how excited I was that we were fighting at the Performance Center in front of people who had no added sound effects,” Bryan told CBS Sports. “I thought, ‘this is really nice.’ No one else thinks that and it’s certainly not so interesting as an audience. But for me, and I don’t know if I consider myself an artist, but what we do is art. , it really shows how good you are at that art .. I really liked that challenge.There were a couple of people who really enjoyed it.Casaro and I talk about it and Drew Gula.We talk about it, without people.One of the positives is that you don’t have to be entertained.people fight and fight can do some things better.It’s just the difference between theater and film, right? For someone who has been fighting for a long time, I love any small change.

“But, yes, I’m ready for the fans to come back. I’m ready to get immediate feedback. There’s nothing like a pro fight in front of a live crowd. It doesn’t matter if it’s 300 people or going. Having 25,000 people. Of course, bigger stadiums are cooler and what you’re doing you give it immediate feedback. Especially after coming back from the things of my blows, it’s taken to another level, where I’ll be paired up and sometimes take chills. I’m very happy, but I don’t want to fight in front of people because it was so much fun because it was up my alley. “

While Bryan saw himself as the kind of artist who could move forward with the empty canvas offered by the empty Performance Center, he went to the ThunderDome and returned to Reigns, where he was sitting alive to watch the onset of the cancer pandemic. It was a veteran learning experience put on by many of WWE’s greatest talents in history.

Since returning to the SummerSlam 2020 event, Reigns ’character has taken on new dimensions, both as a heel fighter and as a mix of arrogance and intensity, through interviews and work within the ring.

“When I saw the show and from the perspective of a Roman character and how he went about fighting in the ThunderDome, I said‘ that’s genius, ’” Bryan said. “I don’t know if this translates well to an ordinary audience, but he has taken it and emphasized the good sides of the crowd … Roman, from a character point of view, is a different level from everyone else in this era.”

The key to Bryan’s “genius” in Bryan’s Reigns isn’t just from the character work done on the microphone; in fact, Reigns has won long-standing critical acclaim, rather than understanding that the ThunderDome environment offered a unique level of intimacy. to tell stories in matches.

Where Bryan was able to hear the chops, kicks, and physicality of the action without the fans in attendance, Reigns added a unique kind of dialogue to his matches. This has been the focus of Reigns ’clashes with Jey Uso and Kevin Owens, allowing Reigns to tell stories with audiovisual and audio beats.

“I agree 100% [that the stories are boosted by the intimacy of the environment]”Bryan said.” And he gets to talk more calmly. That would be harder to do in front of a live audience. The ability to talk to your opponent in the trash in a match … for example, I thought things were wonderful with Jey Uso. Not only were the games, but the story of the matches was told in audio format, not just in visual battle format. That’s one of the things I hate about using the word ‘genius’ too much for myself, but having the ability to look at something with fresh eyes and see the positives. It’s something I completely missed. When I was thinking about fighting at the Performance Center and ThunderDome, I thought the audio would be great with physical fighting, listening to kicks and chops. You will be able to feel more physical because there are no fans. It didn’t occur to me to talk about the trash that Roman was talking about, but also to tell the story I heard through the process. When Jey Pigeon first played the game, I was like, ‘Oh, god, why didn’t I think of this?’ “

Like almost everyone else, Reigns says he is excited about the return of live people. Wrestling, at best, is an art form driven by interactions between performers and the crowd. Fans can make a big impact in a match, not only through presentation and optics, but also by giving fighters feedback on what connects and what doesn’t connect with the audience.

Speaking to CBS Sports, Edge discussed how hard it is to do so without receiving that opinion, that he had to rely on a “gut compass” and use his decades of knowledge to calculate how live people would respond to his conversations and matches. .

Reigns teamed up with Edge, and explained that, despite the good reception he received at ThunderDome, the same thing that moves him most about WrestleMania is to introduce his current character to the live audience and receive the reaction he creates. a real bond with the humans who live in the stands. This will give him the validation he has lost in improving his game over the last eight months.

“Edge isn’t lying. It’s tough,” Reigns said. “It’s hard to do in front of anyone, but having a ThunderDome environment is definitely better. But it’s not a real connection. People don’t promise what we’re doing. They don’t change my pace. And it’s not called a headset, that’s what or what This participation is essential to this art form, it is an interaction based on reaction, without which we are not in our purest state of performance, there is no doubt that being a crowd – a whole crowd, a half crowd or a quarter – is someone with that. to immerse ourselves in this performance and walk us through this emotional lettering of physical storytelling, there’s nothing for me, even when I returned to SummerSlam, it was the first week of ThunderDome; I think and that’s what I did.So for me Sunday night it will not be alone that night, it will be all the time built up until that night.

“I’ve had nine months of work with me: the progression of the characters, the dedication to the personality and the details of the stories I tell each week. Doing all that hard work and knowing how to give the balls to show and show them all on the best stage, that’s the last cake. That’s the prize. That’s the trophy. to be able to put it all together and feel the crowd, whether they recognize me properly or boo, so it will be a sign of the hard work and the week I have done … since August, I haven’t taken a week off.I’ve been to every SmackDown program, segment “Every week, I’ve spent more time on TV on SmackDown. For me, WrestleMania is so much more than interaction. Going out there is getting that audience joy and that respect. I look forward to it, what I do and what drives me to be the greatest.”