Magazine Archive: Good Riddance, Thunderdome

By Rick Ucchino, originally in FightfulMag.com issue 4

You’ll be hard-pressed to find many people who will look back on the year 2020 with great fondness. Some glittering moments of joy maybe, but for most of us, the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic is something we will strive to forget with very little success. This virus changed our entire way of life. The way we think. The way we act. The way we function on a day-to-day basis.

COVID-19 destroyed livelihoods and shuttered businesses. It canceled our favorite past times and stretched our collective mental health to the brink. Most importantly, may we never forget the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their lives and the many more whose lives were forever altered by this virus.

The key for many to surviving the pandemic, not so much literally but metaphorically speaking, was to find an escape. For us wrestling fans, that was easy. When the world stopped, professional wrestling did not. Right or wrong, pro wrestling persevered. With so many obstacles in their way, these men and women risked everything to entertain us. At the risk of sounding cliche, they put it all on the line to put smiles on our faces.

In the early days, there was nothing. There were no fans, no fake crowd noise, no ambience of any kind. Ask any wrestler, and they’ll tell you just how important the energy of a live audience is to their performance. They live and die with the roar of the crowd. Suddenly that was gone. WrestleMania 36 was held inside the WWE Performance Center to an audience of zero.

Drew McIntyreand Braun Strowmanwon their first world championships. After a miraculous comeback, Edgehad his first singles match in nearly a decade. Not a single fan was in sight unless you count the giant industrial one in the ceiling. It wasn’t fair. Not to the fans and certainly not to the performers, but still, they pushed forward.

Despite the superstar’s best efforts, the shows were difficult to watch, at times, in the months that followed. The birth of cinematic matches piqued our interest for a while before they quickly jumped the shark. WWE would later use NXT and Performance Center talent to create a live, but still artificial, fan atmosphere. While the noise certainly helped, the talent was clearly told to react a certain way, and their reactions could not match the authenticity of a live audience.

By the time summer rolled around, it was pretty clear the world wasn’t going to open back up anytime soon. WWE knew something needed to be done to reinvigorate their performers and the fans. They had to find a way to bring the WWE Universe back into the fold.

Welcome to ThunderDome.

On August 21, 2020, WWE broadcasted the first of many live shows at the Amway Center in Orlando. A bio-secure bubble equipped with nearly 1000 LED boards that created a virtual viewing experience never seen before. Each week thousands of fans from across the globe would video conference live to watch WWE television from the comfort and safety of their own homes. You can hear Michael Colein your head, can’t you?

“Welcome to the award-winning ThunderDome!”

They may have run that line into the ground to the point that it became a running gag for the Internet wrestling community, but they were absolutely justified for that bi-weekly flex. The ThunderDome was a massive achievement and earned WWE the award for “Best Tech Innovation During the COVID-19 Pandemic” at the Cynopsis Sports Media Awards.

Aside from being a massive technological success, the ThunderDome immediately garnered a new interest in the product, and the fans started to come back in larger numbers. The facility also allowed WWE to stretch their imaginations and go beyond the limitations of a live audience. Opinions are deeply divided on supernatural elements and whether they have a place in pro wrestling, but there’s no denying that lasting memories were created during the ThunderDome Era.

Absolutely no one will ever forget the night that Randy Ortonburned a human being alive. Bray Wyatt has always been a character to push reality to its breaking point, and during the pandemic, he found a way to push the boundaries even further. By the time December rolled around, the ThunderDome was on its second home. The first PPV inside Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, was TLC. The main event that night saw the Fiendbattle the Viperin a Firefly Inferno Match.

Unlike inferno matches of old, where the fire was contained to the ring apron, the empty confines of the ThunderDome allowed WWE’s tech team to engulf the entire bubble with controlled flames. Wyatt dominated for most of the match, but in the end, it was Orton who pushed Bray into the fire first. True to character, the Fiend just kept coming, and what the Viper did next will forever be seared into the minds of those who stood witness. He set the former world champion down with an RKO, doused him in gasoline, and set him ablaze.

The WWE Universe then watched on as “Bray Wyatt” became fully engulfed in the center of the ring. I don’t think you need me to tell you that this ending was clearly staged and filmed ahead of time. If you were unaware, the fact that Orton was not arrested for attempted murder should have been a dead giveaway. Well, that and Wyatt being reincarnated in time for WrestleMania 37.

Death, destruction, reincarnation, demonic characters that can change form mid-match and make others spew black muck - those were just some of the lengths that the company was willing to go to entertain the masses. While there is a portion of the audience that is all-in on that kind of content, yours truly included, it was not for everyone. In fact, the deeper WWE went into the realm of the supernatural, the more disengaged the Internet wrestling community became. Right around the time Alexa Blissintroduced the world to her doll, Lilly, is just about the time those on Twitter began begging for the product to get back to the basics.

As the ThunderDome Era soldiered on, the WWE Universe seemed to become less and less enthusiastic about each show. By the time the ThunderDome had reached its third home at the Yuengling Center in Tampa, the ratings for Monday Night RAW had started to drop to all-time lows. Maybe the novelty of the ThunderDome simply wore off after we got a small taste of live crowds again at WrestleMania 37. Perhaps it was the series of seemingly never-ending rematches and nonsensical storylines.

Most assuredly, there were several fans who were turned off by the budgetary decisions made by WWE this year, but that’s a discussion for another article. To be fair, it could have been as simple as everyone growing tired of the piped-in crowd noise and an average of roughly three camera cuts per second by the production team.

The bottom line is that the ThunderDome Era was far from perfect, but it certainly wasn’t all bad. The week-to-week product may have been a chore to consume at times, but when WWE needed to deliver on a big show, they did it time and time again. As we look back on this time of pandemic wrestling, we should be focusing on the positives. Haven’t we had enough negativity these past 18 months?

Arguably the most important character shift in modern WWE history happened right at the beginning of the ThunderDome Era. After taking time away from the company, Roman Reigns made his return at SummerSlam and laid waste to Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt following their Universal Championship match. That night was the catalyst for one of the best runs in all of professional wrestling. Reigns would shock the world a week later when he aligned himself with Paul Heyman, and then he quickly captured the Universal Championship a couple of days later at Payback.

Reigns has been running roughshod on the SmackDown locker room since his first day back, and now with the Usosby his side, the Bloodlineis showing no signs of slowing down. Roman Reigns is a bigger star than he ever has been before, and people will point to 2020 as the time he took things to the next level.The Tribal Chiefwas born in the ThunderDome.

Roman Reigns, without question, has been one of the most valuable performers over the last year-plus. But if you’re looking for MVP’s inside and outside of the squared circle, look no further than Bayley. I could write 1500 words alone on all the great work she’s done throughout the entire pandemic. It turns out she was just as vital backstage as she was on television.

While speaking to Natalyaearlier this year, she told me Bayley was an inspiration to others in the locker room. Pushing talent to make the best of a bad situation —whether that meant drawing energy from one another, berating Michael Cole on commentary, or simply remembering to have some fun.

As Bayley was rallying the troops behind the scenes, she was leading by example in the ring. It’s easy to look at her Hell in a Cell match with Sasha Banksor her Hell in a Cell match with Bianca Belair and say she’s incredible at what she does. But it was those other moments that truly made Bayley a must-watch star during the ThunderDome Era. The jabs at Michael Cole during commentary and even her matches. The rise of her “Ding Dong, Hello!” talk show. Even if it was a brief backstage interview, Bayley always made the most out of her time. She is desperately missed on SmackDown, but we always remember the special moments she created for us during some of the darkest times of our lives.

When people look back on the ThunderDome Era, I hope they choose to remember all the great moments and do so with fondness.

A year after Edge made a miraculous return to the ring at the 2020 Royal Rumble, his long-time best friend Christianpulled off his own miracle at the 2021 Royal Rumble. He teased for years that he had one more match left in him. Unfortunately, his final WWE match happened in front of LED boards. He didn’t get that live pop that he truly deserved. However, we still got to witness that tremendous in-ring embrace between Edge and Christian, and that’s something that will always bring a smile to my face.

This year’s Royal Rumble delivered two incredible victories. Not only did Edge go wire-to-wire to win his second, but also Bianca Belair punched her ticket to a historic match at WrestleMania 37. Her ascension to the top of the Blue Brand’s Women’s Division has been an absolute joy to watch. Speaking of climbing to the top of the mountain, let us not forget that the ThunderDome Era will always be associated with the All Mighty Era.

For the longest time, the Hurt Businesswas the best thing going on Monday Night RAW. In just a year’s time, Bobby Lashleywent from dinner dates with Lanato capturing his first-ever WWE Championship. While no one can provide a good reason for why the Hurt Business was split up in the weeks that followed, Lashley has gone on to have one of the most dominant runs as WWE Champion in recent memory.

I’ve written the word “era” more times than I can count in this article but allow me one more as the ThunderDome laid witness to the end of an era. Thirty years after making his WWE debut, The Undertakerwalked down to the ring one final time (we believe) at Survivor Series 2020. Many legends were on hand to pay their final respects to the Deadman’scareer. Including Kane, in full gear, while pretty much everyone else was wearing a sport coat. That, in itself, was incredible to witness, as was The Undertaker’s final march to the ring.

The soon-to-be Hall of Famer said his final, “Rest in Peace,” and closed it out with a touching tribute to his late manager. Taker striking his iconic pose one last time as a hologram of Paul Bearer looked on in approval. Was that really the Undertaker’s last time in a WWE ring? Only time will tell. But if it was, chalk up another moment in time that will be synonymous with the ThunderDome.

It’s so easy to be negative these days, but I choose to be a glass-half-full kind of guy. Over the last year and a half, the WWE prevailed under the most impossible circumstances. They dared to be bold, created lasting memories, and made new superstars while calling the ThunderDome home. I think I speak for everyone when I say thank you for your service ThunderDome. Now that fans are back, however, may we never see you again.

Rick Ucchino is a 12-year broadcast journalist out of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is currently the morning news co-anchor for 700WLW. Rick also covers pro wrestling regularly for Sportskeeda, where he serves as an interviewer, talk show host and analyst.

Twitter: @RickUcchino