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[CW Blood] Emi Sakura (joshi wrestling veteran) vs Billie Starkz (outrageously talented young wrestler) is an amazing match.
I'd describe the AEW Dark crowd as "happy but chill" for the most part, and this is one of those rare matches that really gets them to sit up and get invested:
re: wrestleblather
Conversely, this has verymuch influenced the generation of wrestlers who made their name during lockdown shows (ex: The Acclaimed), where aside from a videocamera and their colleagues, there was no audience to rely on for feedback.
Seeing them first adapt to a full house audience, it's a completely different environment.
wrestleblather
It's tough to describe how much crowd feedback is a core part of wrestling, especially in the US.
Like, you watch a US wrestler go to Japan for the first time, and do something that's usually usually guaranteed to get the crowd on their feet, and instead they're met with
[polite applause]
. . .
And the wrestler flounders because the crowd is verymuch a character in their own right in this performance, and, from a US perspective, suddenly this character is giving them nothing to work with.