Like a singer crooning to an audience of no one or a writer finding their latest work has been passed off, there must be something so depressing about wrestling in front of an empty crowd. 

Granted, there are times it worked well (take Terry Funk vs Jerry Lawler in 1981 or The Rock vs Mankind at Halftime Heat in 1999), but for over a year wrestling was foreced to struggle without fans in attendance.

The year 2020 was off to a hot start; Edge came out of a nine-year retirement at the Royal Rumble, Jon Moxley had just won the AEW World Championship from Chris Jericho and Jyushin Thunder Liger had a magnificent retirement at Wrestle Kingdom 14. There was a lot going on, the wrestling world was heading towards an interesting period.

Then the unimaginable happened.

A worldwide pandemic started. Everyone was sent home, entertainment was changed entirely and everyone was in fear of the silent killer. There was little time for anyone rational and reasonable, and not terminally online, to worry about what would happen to professional wrestling. 

So much of wrestling had to be changed outright, not all promotions and companies could be afforded the time to stay home and make a plan. 

After a brief absence, Japanese promotions continued running shows in the usual places, for the most part. At first with an empty arena, then later with fans, albeit they could not cheer vocally and could only show their excitement through clapping.

IMPACT! Wrestling would largely follow the model of having no fans in attendance at all, and independent promotions would cease function entirely. Ring of Honor struggled to find any identity and muster any plans to continue at all.

Wrestlers from overseas that were starting to gain popularity would find themselves back in their home countries, trying again. Some would outright retire. 

WWE would host their televised shows in their performance center, away from the arenas and stadiums and away from NXT’s home of Full Sail University. To have these big-time shows take place in a warehouse felt depressing. This company had fans lined up like sardines in a can, bursting with excitement, only to have slams and thuds to the chorus of its own hollow echo. 

It would gain noise in the form of the nearby performance center serving as stand-in crowds while everyone waited out the uncertain times. No Saudi shows, no Chicago shows, no shows that would be in front of fans. Just quietness, with performance center talent soon occupying space to give the illusion of fans. Some of these shows with little to no crowd in a small space made for uncomfortable watches. With all the grunts, moans and screams, it was awkward to listen to with others around. It was far easier at that point to just say you were watching pornography than professional wrestling or just watch on mute.

In this time, there were those who carried the company, making things as compelling as they could. Seth Rollins, Drew McIntyre and the Hurt Business did their due diligence to entertain fans, while the feud and reconciliation of The Riott Squad was one I found myself engaged in as Ruby Riott and Liv Morgan embraced once more, having been split before the pandemic.

There were three standout women who drove the product, retaining viewers and attention. Sasha Banks, Bayley, and at first, Naomi. The latter saw her popularity rising again and again, the fans wanting to see her in better spots on the card but the company didn’t view her that way. As for Sasha and Bayley, their friendship and cockiness kept fans locked in until their inevitable implosion, Banks seeing greatness within herself to persevere through the broken heart Bayley gave her.

Then came the Thunderdome (which sadly did not feature Mad Max). Instead, it was screens of fans and piped-in audio. Still, it was something that offered a semblance of replicating the feel of a WWE show. 

During this time, wrestlers took time away. Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn and Brock Lesnar in particular, but not everyone would be granted this off-season. Wrestlers had to clock in and clock out. Every so often, wrestlers had to take time off due to catching COVID-19 or being exposed to it at the very least.

To think that some of the company’s big moments happened to pre-recorded cheers instead of cheering wrestling fans, Drew McIntyre taking the WWE Championship off of Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker officially retiring in front of a screen of purple clouds, is bizarre. These should have been landmark moments, but that is the fault of no one. Safety comes first, most importantly. 

Meanwhile in Japan, NJPW changed directions drastically by putting their top two championships on EVIL following a defection to Bullet Club. It was a twist no one envisioned, and whilst there was excitement in the moment it quickly turned to disdain as the newly formed House of Torture would live up to their name and torture fans into boredom.

That isn’t to say that they were without quality at all – you need only look at the performances of Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tetsuya Naito, Kazuchika Okada, Jay White, Shingo Takagi and Will Ospreay. In the face of uncertainty and to the silent cheers of a silent crowd, these men busted their asses to give their best. Look at Cagematch, look at the Meltzer ratings, look at how fans who stuck by the promotion view the matches despite the quietness. While some had to see their friends die on mobile screens locally or across the world, they still laced up and fight through it. Wrestling may be predetermined, but the fight was real.

Stardom would also find themselves in the same boat, but would tragically lose one of their heaviest hitters early on as we saw the loss of Hana Kimura. Projected to be a big star, she was beloved by many backstage and by the fandom. She still is. As though in her honor, to this day everyone in the joshi promotion continues to be their best, their individual best. From Oedo Tai to God’s Eye, from Giulia to Tam Nakano, the women of Stardom were determined to show the world the greatness of joshi wrestling. After all, “everybody’s different, everybody’s special!”

AEW fared the best out of any of the wrestling companies. For the bulk of the pandemic, the episodes of Dynamite, Dark and Dark Elevation would transpire at Daily’s Place. Even the pay-per-view events were held there. It was a little rough at times, seeing the company run the same shows with the same view at the same place every week, and many worried about the future of the new company. To start out so strong and be caned like Nancy Kerrigan would have been a bitter sting.

Yet, the company made it work. They usually do. But to survive something so lethal and come out the other end smelling like roses was nothing short of spectacular. That’s why it feels special whenever AEW revisits Daily’s Place. For many wrestling fans this felt like another home, away from the horror of the outside world. 

It sucks that Matt Hardy, Brodie Lee and countless others would debut to a small smattering of people, but they didn’t mind – they wanted to wrestle in front of the world while telling stories beyond what was thought possible before. People were given chances to grow. 

What helped AEW in this period was that they had wrestlers stand in for crowds, they would cheer and boo and chant loud enough that the lack of typical audience fanfare was sometimes barely noticeable. You’d think they were reacting to help the narrative, but I can’t help but feel that this was therapeutic for them too. I imagine that the talent that made all this noise was having the time of their lives during a tumultuous era of human history. That these people were banding together like family just to get through these shows and bonded through this experience. That for many months, they forgot the world was ending, and so did we.

This is human hope.

That community and love would persevere through something so genuinely terrifying and bleak, this is why the company is still around. The talent never gave up. Though I consider myself open to almost any wrestling promotion, this is why I join others in holding the company in regard to it feeling like a home itself. 

And look at the magical moments that happened – some good, some bad. The company learned and adapted from mistakes; the ending to the exploding barbed wire death match and the botched camera angle when MJF threw Chris Jericho off of the Blood and Guts stage to a cushiony stage below. They would even address these issues and make it a part of the show. 

For these transgressions though, there were moments of beautiful positivity; Sting returning from retirement to his home channel of TNT and Eddie Kingston making such a great first impression that it changed his life and the company. And who could forget the ongoing soap opera drama that was the rise and fall and rise of Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page?

AEW even went through tragedy as it lost a member of the roster that was there for a short time yet left a long-lasting impression that cast a shadow as tall as the figure that conjured it. The leader of the Dark Order, the Exalted One, Mr. Brodie Lee. 

Brodie was himself in such a way that made his previous WWE roles feel so different in comparison. So contrast. Brodie Lee created an intimidating character that felt like an intelligent monster while being absolutely hilarious in the Dark Order’s BTE skits. Without Brodie Lee, the TNT Championship wouldn’t have been in the high regard it was once held, and without Brodie Lee, who knows how long the Dark Order would have lasted? The lads in that stable felt like family in their own right.

What truly breaks my heart is that Brodie never got to see how beloved he would be on national television while being himself and given the time to shine that he so gloriously took hold of. While he didn’t die of Covid, it did take this from him. But, wherever he is in the grand expanse of existence, I hope he sees how his families are treated and seen by the pro wrestling public. 

At the risk of this sounding like an over-glorification of AEW, it has to be stated by everyone with a working brain that AEW carried the wrestling industry during this time. There were others such as Giulia, Tam Nakano, Sasha Banks, Bayley, Drew McIntyre, Tetsuya Naito and Jay White, but AEW was the place where everyone shone. It was like an Attitude Era that was pleasant to watch.

In an era where promoters and bookers didn’t know how to determine what was working or not, they had to practically throw darts at the wall to see what would be draws and what would garner ratings.

But, as we were forced to sit at home, we had to witness the backstage unfurling’s of events such as Hana Kimura’s passing, Speaking Out, the mass “budget cuts” from WWE, and the aforementioned loss of Brodie Lee, and we were powerless to stop it.

It was a hard time to be a wrestling fan. Sitting and watching people put each other through pain in the sake of art to a soundtrack of silence, I’m sure a lot of people may have lost their love and fandom for this thing of ours.

But, it’s where I found mine grow. I almost left it entirely, but I held on in hope. At that time, I saw others making content about professional wrestling with their new abundance of free time. I saw people simply writing about what they loved and what they thought and felt. I figured that as a writer, it would be a lot of fun to do the same. I’d probably make a lot of friends. Maybe make some moves.

But when I wrote about Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns’ upcoming TLC match in December 2020, I did not know what would happen next. I was a small-town guy having fun with people in higher positions than me. In ways, I still am. I still feel like a small fish in a greater pond, but the ripples from my fins swim far and wide to touch all that dwell in its waters. It’s still unreal to me there are people out there that anticipate what I do.

Professional wrestling didn’t save my life, but it damn sure changed it. And as I sit here writing about this unreal period in the history of this great sport, I can sit easy remembering this time. While I’ve received love in the past for stories, snippets and poems, this is the first time my writing has made any sort of difference, no matter how small. This is where people saw my talent.

I’m at a place I wasn’t before. 

That’s got to count for something. That is the angelic chorus that plays at the changing of the track, as so ends the sound of silence.