With the Covid-19 pandemic drifting away from the sports world, the fans have been able to return to watching sporting events live in person.  The most notable one, for myself at least, is the return of the WWE universe.  Fans had been waiting a very long time for the fans to make their long awaited return to live shows.  It had been well over a year since WWE hosted their weekly shows with fans in attendance.  July 16, 2021 was the date that will be remembered forever for the company.  That was the first show for them to have a full crowd of fans in attendance for an event.  Since then, the shows have been more enjoyable in my opinion.  Having the live fans there to witness and be engaged into the event is so much better than just the fake crowd noise and virtual screens.  

First, the opening show with fans there was an episode of Friday Night Smackdown.  They did a great job of advertising the show with big matches to look out for.  To start off the show, Vince McMahon came out to greet the fans in Houston, Texas.  The only words he said to the fans were “where the hell have you all been?”  The first wrestler to come out to the fans to fight was none other than the reigning, defending, undisputed Universal Champion, Roman Reigns.  The champ and his cousins the Usos fought against Edge and the Smackdown tag team champions Rey and Dominik Mysterio.  The match was awesome from the start to the finish.  Reigns and his family cheated their way to the win over the good guys.  One of the Usos hit Rey in the face while the referee wasn’t and allowed the other Uso to pin Rey for the win.  The ending to the show saw Seth Rollins defeat the other smackdown competitors that were in the Money in the Bank ladder match the following Sunday night in a fatal four way.  The match was awesome and a great way to end the show with the fans back.

Next, the first pay-per-view with live fans back at them was Money in the Bank to wrap up the weekend on July 18, 2021.  The event featured two incredible ladder matches for the men’s and women’s Money in the Bank briefcases.  Nikki A.S.H would win the women’s ladder match and Big E would win the men’s.  The main event of the show was the first ever encounter between Roman Reigns and Edge for the Universal championship.  This was a huge match for Edge.  He returned at the Royal Rumble event in January of 2020 to one of the biggest pops from the crowd in the history of the WWE.  This match with Reigns was the first one-one-one title match for the Rated-R Superstar since he came back from his career threatening injury.  Edge and Roman delivered a classic main event for the fans in Fort Worth, Texas.  There were a bunch of nearfalls towards the end of the match until the sad ending occurred.  Edge was almost about to spear his way to victory and capture the Universal title until the evil Seth Rollins screwed him out of winning the title.  Rollins would distract Edge which allowed Roman to deliver his own spear to retain the title.

Furthermore, the best part about the fans coming back was that it also meant that another certain individual was coming back just in time for SummerSlam.  When Reigns got on the microphone to announce to the arena that the whole world was gonna acknowledge him as the Head of the Table, John Cena’s iconic theme song would come on and the fans exploded out of their seats.  It was surreal to finally see John Cena back in the WWE once again.  It made my brother, my dad, and I burst out of our seats too.  It was awesome to see Cena and Reigns share the same ring again.  The two would have an epic staredown before Cena told the Tribal Chief, “You can’t see me!”  The two were set to collide at the following month’s SummerSlam pay-per-view for the Universal championship.  

In conclusion, having the fans back has been so much fun and enjoyable to be a WWE fan.  It has made some of the matches more entertaining and the shows as well.  The explosions of shock and awe in the arena when Cena came back was phenomenal to hear because we have not heard anything like that since the pandemic started.  Hopefully from now on, we will never have to go back to no fans for any sports because having the fans there in attendance is way more awesome than an empty arena.