Sometimes, small additions like this can go a long way in WWE.
If you’ve ever watched a Japanese wrestling match, you’ve seen fans throw streamers into the ring during introductions. The referee would announce a wrestler’s name, and within seconds that wrestler would be covered head-to-toe in different-colored streamer fabric. As soon as those streamers flew through the air, you knew you were in for something special. This has been used by WWE before.
Streamers play an important role in Japanese wrestling, even today. They have long been used to signify the importance of a particular match, especially to non-regular and foreign viewers. For example, when I first started watching puroresu, I didn’t have any idea who was good and who was bad, and because of the language barrier, I didn’t know what was being said as the match progressed.
But, as the referee made the formal wrestler’s announcements, those wrestlers were showered with different-colored streamers that matched those wrestlers’ signature attire. One wrestler in that match got far more streamers thrown at him than the others. In a second, I realized that, ‘this guy must be very good to deserve that’.
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In today’s WWE, we don’t see anything like this on a regular basis. The most recent time WWE allowed the use of streamers was all the way back in 2015. Finn Balor challenged Kevin Owens at the Beast in the East NXT special for the NXT Championship. As Balor was being announced, he, having wrestled for New Japan, was showered with streamers from the appreciative Japanese audience. This was allowed because Johnny Ace, the agent for the match, thought it would be a good thing to add to the match. He was right.
But WWE shouldn’t limit streamer use to one-off matches whenever they do shows in Japan. In fact, they should encourage more regular streamer use from the fans. Here are three good reasons why…