Rumor: Impact Wrestling Paid Fans to Attend India Tapings

That’s quite the payoff. The most important people in wrestling aren’t the promoters, the commentators or the wrestlers but rather the audience. Without them, there’s no money coming in and there’s eventually no product. In theory your audience is paying to see the show, but according to a new report, that might not be the case for a recent TV taping.

According to the “Wrestling Observer Newsletter” by way of WrestleZone.com, Impact Wrestling paid fans to come to their recent India tapings. The approximately 500 fans were reportedly paid 250-400 Rupees (about $3.80 and $7.60) each and told who to cheer and who to boo, as either group would enter from a specific side of the ring. A few wrestlers, such as Ethan Carter III, Sonjay Dutt and Mahabali Shera were naturally cheered or booed without any direction.

Opinion: If this is true, I’m really not sure what to say. Mumbai is a city with a metro population of eighteen million people and the company can’t draw five hundred people to what should have been a cheap night of entertainment? If they actually had to pay people to come to the show, they’re probably not as popular as they seem to be in India, which isn’t a good sign.