It’s August, 2015, and it’s the go-home show before TakeOver: Brooklyn, the very first TakeOver to be held outside of Full Sail University. Kevin Owens–who will be gunning for Finn Balor’s title one last time before heading off to the main roster–comes to the ring to hype the match, and when he mentions Brooklyn, the Full Sail crowd erupts into boos and “Brooklyn sucks” chants. They’ve always been able to witness TakeOvers, the payoffs to NXT’s stories, there at Full Sail, and they’re furious that will be denied to them now.
Kevin stops dead, staring at them, then launches into a bitter rant about how ungrateful and selfish the Full Sail audience is, to want to deny the NXT superstars they claim to love the chance at a grander stage. He informs them that they’re ridiculously predictable in their hypocrisy:
“Heh,” he says as they burst into cheers.
As the crowd howls in fury, he goes on to call them “trash” that “makes him sick to his stomach” to perform in front of, but that hardly bothers them after that cruelest of insults; they’d rather be called trash than be compared to John Cena. They’re appalled and enraged, and when Finn Balor shows up to chase Kevin out of Full Sail they are delirious with delight. Finn will retain his championship in Brooklyn, and this will turn out to be Kevin’s final promo to Full Sail, that little venue where so many great stories have been told, so many WWE superstars introduced.
Kevin’s words are annoyed, they’re heartfelt. But like so much of what Kevin says, they’re also double-edged.
Because Full Sail is… complicated.
Wrestling venues have personalities. The people in it change, yet the place itself can develop a character, with a dynamic and energy that is distinctly its own. Look at Philadelphia, with its hardcore ECW roots and its deep-burning hatred of Roman Reigns. Osaka and its own stubborn rejection of Tetsuya Naito. Chicago’s chaotic energy and perverse C.M. Punk chants. PWG’s Reseda venue, with the fans jammed right up against the apron, screaming. Full Sail is a complex system of individuals, many of whom differ with the mass (the man next to me screaming angrily at Johnny Gargano and gesturing “no” so vehemently that he almost punched me in the nose multiple times, for example), but there remains a sense of it as a character in its own right, a character that you can talk about as if it were a singular thing, as I will do in this essay.
One important fact about Full Sail that shapes its character: attendance is cheap. General admission tickets are a mere ten dollars for four hours’ worth of some of the finest wrestling in the world. Those front row seats are only twenty dollars–not an unreasonable amount to spend once a month to see Sami Zayn or Samoa Joe or Kairi Sane or Matt Riddle. That leads to having a remarkably stable set of audience members, in which the same faces appear over and over again: Bayley Superfan Izzy, or Ciampa-hating Granny, or Young Earnest Johnny Wrestling Fan. Some people assume that they’re paid actors, but I think that’s underestimating fans’ desire to be part of the narrative–hell, other fans pay wrestling promotions vast sums of money for the mere chance. And it’s also underestimating the skill of wrestlers at reading and working their audience. After years spent performing in front of much the same people, WWE doesn’t have to be paying that older woman–Tommaso knows her, and knows that she will happily boo him if he gets in her face.
Full Sail is full of people who will eagerly throw themselves into the roles the story demands of them–this is their strength, and also their weakness.
A second important aspect of the atmosphere of Full Sail is the NXT house show infrastructure. Scattered around Florida, in armories and community halls, NXT has tiny house shows, maybe a dozen a month. Most of the people who come to Full Sail tapings attend some of them regularly, and as a result even before a wrestler appears on the Network most of Full Sail already knows them. They’ve watched brand-new wrestlers develop their skills and more experienced wrestlers polish their characters in what basically amounts to a laboratory for wrestling. There’s a real feeling of beta-testing at these shows: I attended two back-to-back once and at the first one, Rhea Ripley was all smiles and sunshine, while the very next night she was all glowers and attitude, with no explanation of the shift given or demanded. What this means is that the Full Sail faithful have a real sense of personal investment in the characters that wrestlers have developed to appeal to them. They had a hand in the evolution of No Way Jose or Eric Bugenhagen, and that can translate into a fiercely protective love well before the character ever appears in Full Sail (or a fiercely possessive hatred–just ask Baron Corbin or Elias). They’ve watched the wrestlers goof in the ring, mature in their skills, find their niches. There’s a particularly intimate connection there.
I’ve attended two Full Sail tapings: one in 2015, and one in 2019. The 2015 taping is only the fourth wrestling show I’ve ever gone to, and my first broadcast show ever, so I’m still unsure of myself, getting my bearings. Standing outside waiting to be let in, I become dimly aware that most of these people seem to know each other, as they hang out and chat in large groups. There’s a meet and greet before with Tyler Breeze, and when I come to the desk he smiles at me and says “So, this is your first time here, huh?”
Dumbfounded, I stammer something and retreat to collect myself, wondering with some panic if there was something about my appearance or demeanour that was the equivalent of a blinking neon sign: “THIS PERSON HAS NEVER BEEN TO A FULL SAIL TAPING BEFORE, WHAT A NOOB.” Only later does it dawn on me that he knows almost all of these audience members from seeing them every month, that it’s his knowledge and not my awkwardness that’s out of the ordinary.
It’s the quarterfinals of the very first Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, and I watch in concern as two still-unsigned indie guys get defeated by the now-implausible team of Rhyno and Baron Corbin:
It’s the beginning of one of the greatest stories in wrestling, but I don’t know that then. Later in the same taping, Johnny Gargano comes back out to wrestle Apollo Crews and loses again, taking a standing moonsault and the pin. Apollo poses and smiles, victorious, and heads up the ramp. I notice Johnny is still sitting in the ring, wincing and checking his knee.
“Is he really hurt?” I whisper to Dan as Johnny gets slowly to his feet.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Dan says.
I’m not so sure. “But the cameras are off,” I point out. “None of this will be broadcast. So why keep doing it?” Apparently I have always assumed, somewhere in my brain, that at broadcast shows when the cameras turn off the “injured” wrestlers just hop to their feet and saunter off. I’m unnerved by the continuing existence of Johnny’s pain.
The announcer is setting up the next match, but I’m watching Johnny limp gingerly toward the curtain, worrying about him. “Just wait,” Dan says, and indeed, as Johnny goes through the curtain, at the very last second the limp suddenly vanishes and he disappears into the back, walking unhindered. “See?” says Dan.
“Maybe he’s really hurt, but he’s putting on a brave front for the people in the back,” I fret. “Maybe he doesn’t want to look weak in front of the other wrestlers.”
Dan blinks at me. “That’s not how this works,” he says. “That’s not how any of this works.”
I nod, but I still check the injury reports later.
(He’s fine).
In 2015, Full Sail hadn’t forged the relationship it now has with Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, that amazing, tortuous, symbiotic connection. That evolves slowly over the years, through the Cruiserweight Classic, through the struggles and sufferings of #DIY. The regulars of Full Sail watch Johnny and Tommaso goof around with Bobby Roode’s theme song, they see them marvel over the fact that they have actual merch.
They’re there for them when they return from Brooklyn empty-handed, they’re there for them when they return from Toronto in triumph.
And they’re there for Johnny Wrestling when he limps back from Chicago, broken and betrayed by Tommaso.
They support Johnny through the dark, bleak times, when he feuds with Andrade Cien Almas and can’t seem to win because his spirit is shattered. When Tommaso finally comes back, they’re there for him too, to boo him as deafeningly as he deserves. For a while Tommaso comes out to no music at all but the hatred of the Full Sail crowd, and it’s a fantastic choice.
When Johnny’s zealous pursuit of vengeance ends up costing Aleister Black his championship and–horrifically–handing it over to Tommaso instead, Full Sail supports him through that as well. But when Johnny’s fervent vows to make it better never seem quite able to come true, Full Sail grows restless. They want him to triumph, they want him to have his revenge. But he keeps failing and he keeps failing and he keeps failing, and the mood curdles and sours. Feeling the love of Full Sail that has always defined him slipping away, Johnny visibly panics:
And it’s that panic that leads to his attacking Aleister Black for one last desperate chance at Tommaso, a chance that he fails to capitalize on again. When Velveteen Dream suggests the nickname Johnny Failure, Full Sail picks it up and chants it eagerly, wielding it like a scourge to try and goad him into success. The mood of the crowd starts to veer wildly through a single taping, or even through a single promo: Full Sail goes from cheering Johnny to booing him, back and forth, chaotic. It’s clearly driving Johnny around the bend that he can’t figure out the way to keep their hearts, that he’ll get their approval just to have it slip away again moments later. And when Johnny is at his lowest point, desperate to get those Johnny Wrestling chants back, or to at least stop the Johnny Failure chants, Tommaso swoops in for the kill, reminding him that when they were together, they had it all: friendship, gold, and the love of Full Sail.
My first Full Sail taping was during the first Dusty Rhodes Classic. My second, ironically, is during the third Dusty Rhodes Classic. I’m in the crowd as Tommaso tries to coax Johnny into renewing their partnership. A lone voice calls out angrily, “You don’t need him, Johnny!” but as if in rebuttal, a loud “DIY” chant starts up. Tommaso grins and says–too low for the live audience to hear, a line spoken for the broadcast viewers only: “Listen.”
I was there for #DIY’s formation, and I loved them dearly, but I have no desire to be there for its re-forging. Sitting there in Full Sail, surrounded by people chanting for Johnny to clasp hands with Tommaso, I hunch down in misery, hoping he doesn’t. Stubbornly staying in the fiction, I’m appalled that people are willing to forget how horrible Tommaso was, that they could want Johnny to put aside all the pain his former tag partner caused him. I fall silent, painfully aware the whole time that silence is the worst possible response in wrestling. I don’t want to cheer Johnny re-joining with Tommaso; I don’t want to boo Johnny’s frantic, unwise attempts at regaining his sense of self; on the other hand I am extremely concerned about your poor life choices because I care about your psychological well-being seems an… unwieldy chant. When Johnny does take Tommaso’s hand and the crowd bursts into cheers, I feel desolate and full of worry. I feel like Full Sail has abandoned him to his demons.
As it turns out, Full Sail is more mercilessly clear-sighted than I am. Because when #DIY is eliminated from the tournament; when Tommaso has his terrible failure of nerve and tries, once again, to turn on Johnny; when Johnny is ready for him and reveals that he hadn’t trusted Tommaso at all, Full Sail erupts into an amazing wild babble of noise, most of it supportive. Watching the episode on the Network later, it’s fascinating how different the broadcast version is from the experience there in Full Sail at that moment is: without the closeups and perfectly planned camera angles, it’s hard for the live crowd to see the subtleties that the broadcast audience does–the unexpected tenderness with with Tommaso helps Johnny to his feet, the flash of despair in his eyes when he realizes he’s been tricked. And Full Sail doesn’t know yet what the broadcast audience does: that Tommaso is struggling through all of this injured, that this is the last time they’ll see him in Full Sail for the foreseeable future. We don’t get any of those nuances. What we do get is the raw, unfiltered emotion of that moment, the relief that Johnny hasn’t lost his soul to Tommaso, the satisfaction of realizing that the betrayer has become the betrayed. It’s a very different experience, being there live, and I suspect many of the times the Full Sail audience seems inconsistent or inexplicable come from the discrepancy between the chaos of the live show and the more careful structuring of the aired product.
The broadcast version of this episode ends with Johnny standing over Tommaso in triumph. But that’s not where it ended for the live audience. Maybe it got trimmed for story reasons once Tommaso couldn’t compete, or because of time limitations, or maybe it was always meant to be a bonus gift for the fans at Full Sail, but after the broadcast cut finishes, Johnny walks slowly down the ramp and back to the ring where Tommaso’s title has been left behind. As the audience realizes where he’s going, what his goal is, a cacophony of chants starts to rise, every chant they’ve ever used to praise and jeer Johnny all being yelled together. Johnny Wrestling, Johnny Failure, Johnny Champion, all the different chants mingle together until Johnny Gargano, walking back to pick up the title on the apron and lay claim to it, is all of them at once.
Watching him, I realize at last that Full Sail has never abandoned Johnny Gargano, that in fact they love him so much that they’ve been chanting anything at all that they think will further the story. They chanted Johnny Failure in part because they sensed that the story called for them to lose faith in Johnny, so they did. They knew, because they know their wrestling narrative, that Johnny could only be free of Tommaso by re-joining him and re-making #DIY: whether sincerely or falsely, whether for a long time or a brief period, they didn’t know, but they knew he had to go through that trial by fire, and so they cheered for it. In exactly the same way Johnny would do anything at all for Full Sail, even plunge into darkness, so Full Sail would do anything at all for Johnny, even scream abuse at him and despise him. It’s a twisted, wildly co-dependent relationship: both Johnny and Full Sail warping their own hearts around each other to create this story.
But what a story.
In his parting words, Kevin Owens called the people of Full Sail “the John Cena of wrestling fans,” and Full Sail was furious at him for it. But so much of what Kevin says has a double meaning, and this is no exception. Look at their dedication, how people come month after month for years, always ready to be there for the wrestlers, for the stories. Look at their passionate, possessive love for their beloved superstars–when Bayley and Sasha Banks appeared at our taping, people around me burst into applause and tears together, calling out welcome home! Look at how they throw themselves into the story, trying to anticipate it and be whatever the narrative needs them to be. It can feel like they’re always grabbing the attention, like they’re trying to warp the narrative around themselves. But at its heart, I believe that comes from wanting to be what the wrestlers require from their audience, from a desire to help bring the storylines of NXT to completion. Full Sail are like members of an acting troupe in which the main characters know their lines, but the minor characters don’t have access to the script and are required to improvise and guess what their role is. “WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION?” Full Sail yells like an earnest but temperamental artist, trying to play along whenever possible, even when that leads to wildly erratic behavior that can be baffling to a broadcast viewer.
In the end, Full Sail is indeed the John Cena of wrestling fans: loud and brash and passionate, sometimes frustrating, occasionally annoying.
But always, at its heart, full of hustle, loyalty, and respect.
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