The WWE ThunderDome debuted during Friday night's episode of SmackDown, and then made its return during SummerSlam yesterday evening. Essentially an LED board with fans watching the show from home, it creates a "crowd" for WWE shows in Orlando's Amway Center, minus the noise (WWE is piping in a generic rumble).
All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite, meanwhile, is bringing back a very limited number of fans for their weekly shows, and Chris Jericho has now weighed in on WWE's decision to shake things up a little.
"I loved it, the presentation looked great," he said. "I think it’s great that the WWE got out of the Performance Center, it was really killing their vibe, it just looks like a warehouse, it has nothing to do...at least dress it up a bit or darken it. The ThunderDome looks cool. The thing that was confusing to me was the fans behind them."
Jericho did, however, point out an obvious problem with the ThunderDome concept. "They weren’t making a lot of noise, or maybe they couldn’t make noise or whatever that they may be. It looked cool, but it’s also a bit weird out of like The Running Man or something you would see on Black Mirror. All of these faces behind you but they’re all on TV screens. Nothing takes the place of real fans and I’m really excited to have real fans at our show next week next Thursday, and we did it right."
Jericho went on to talk about the safety measures AEW is putting in place to bring fans back, but they do have the advantage of hosting Dynamite in an open-air arena (there's no way WWE could even bring back a limited number of fans indoors).
What do you make of Jericho's take on ThunderDome? Do you agree or disagree?