Select Answers: Piped in noise. Leon Slater, Rewritten history

Welcome to Select Answers, a short feature that provides some of the answers to questions that were posed to Sean Ross Sapp in the most recent Fightful Weekly Q&A Podcast. The show drops every week on Fightful Select for subscribers.

When aggregating these posts please refer to it as "Fightful Select Answers Q&A" and tag Fightful, noting that it was in the Q&A format to avoid confusion.

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I see you've been reporting a lot on TNA contracts lately. Do you have anything on Leon Slater's contract? Feels like he's a guy that should be very valuable to wherever he goes. I also personally think he'd fit best in AEW.

Yes, Corey Brennan reported recently that Leon Slater's TNA deal goes until next fall. TNA signed him to a multi-year contract when they originally signed him. He'll almost certainly have many options when that deal is up, and he's already well liked within WWE, and has made a good impression when visiting the show and working with their talent.

What are the biggest examples of rewrote history or misconception in wrestling that won't seem to go away no matter how many times you try to inform people?

Certainly as of late it has been romanticizing Vince McMahon's creative just because many find WWE's less than stellar. I've seen so many people, either legitimately or for rage bait indicating Triple H is the same. I don't think people remember the Wild Card, Raw dark, turning the lights out during matches, brand to brand invitational, when he called like 6 NXT talent up with no plan, YOU are the authority, Raw Underground, booking Retribution because of investors asking about new stars and falling numbers, Fiend/Rollins, Fiend/Goldberg, Cain Velasquez's signing changing a bunch of world title programs. All of that was just in a few years. Vince sucked and was creatively bankrupt and was almost completely out of good ideas. Not just that, he actively had bad ideas and just did the same matches over and over.

Does WWE still pipe in crowd noise? Especially when it comes to the heels, it seems the jeering you hear on TV and live events is sometimes disproportionate to the reactions going on in the crowd.

I haven't noticed it as much, and I know that initially, Netflix didn't want them to. When they do it, it's very noticeable. They got really into the habit of doing it to the extreme during the pandemic and retained it. There were very dumb people who didn't understand the point last year, when I said they were piping in audio over Dominik promos they didn't need. The piped in audio is usually laid over the broadcast, and I had people saying "NO U GRIFTER I WAS THERE AND IT WAS LOUD." For one, it's always louder in person than on TV. Second, that was the point. He didn't need it, and they still piped in the audio, and it sounded bad. For a while, WWE laid a blanket crowd noise over their matches, which I actually think is a good idea and most companies should do.