Wrestling fans chant “This Is Awesome” to tell the wrestlers in the ring that the match is delivering. The three-word call fires on a rising rhythm, usually with clapping, and it is the arena’s loudest way of saying we are locked in. The chant grew out of TNA Wrestling crowds around 2008 and now shows up in arenas on both sides of the Atlantic.
What makes it interesting is how much wrestling has changed since then. Fans still use it constantly, yet they also complain about it constantly, which is a strange place for a chant to sit. Both sides of that argument are worth understanding before you hear it live for the first time.
Table of Contents
- What Does ‘This Is Awesome’ Mean in Wrestling?
- Where Did the ‘This Is Awesome’ Chant Come From?
- Who Started It: The MSL Claim Fans Still Argue About
- How the Chant Jumped Into WWE Arenas
- What Types of Wrestling Moments Prompt the Chant?
- Why Do Fans Chant It Before Anything Has Happened?
- What Makes It Different From Other Wrestling Chants?
- How Has the Chant Spread Across Wrestling Promotions?
- Why Does ‘This Is Awesome’ Feel Different From Other Wrestling Chants?
- Why Do Some Fans Dislike the Chant?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Where did the u0022This Is Awesomeu0022 chant come from?
- Who started the u0022What?u0022 chant in WWE?
- Why do WWE fans chant u0022one fall?
- What does the crowd chant at wrestling shows?
- Does WWE use fake crowd noise?
- Is the u0022This Is Awesomeu0022 chant annoying?
- Conclusion
What Does ‘This Is Awesome’ Mean in Wrestling?
“This Is Awesome” is a crowd chant that says the thing happening in front of you is better than ordinary. Not safe, not good, not merely entertaining. Excellent.
In practice the performance is simple. One voice or a small pocket of fans starts it, the sound climbs on “this,” breaks over “is,” and lands hardest on “awesome,” then the whole section repeats it and claps on the downbeat. Nobody is trying to be quiet about it.
For the wrestlers, that volume is a live feedback line. A pop at the right moment of a match tells the performers they are landing it, and it can carry momentum through the rest of the bout. Every promotion has its own version of that noise, but this chant is the one most often used as pure applause.
Where Did the ‘This Is Awesome’ Chant Come From?
The phrase itself is older than wrestling. It was widely used in pop culture long before any arena, and plenty of wrestlers heard it in a crowd before they ever worked a match themselves.
The version wrestling fans chant today is generally credited to crowds in TNA Wrestling around 2008. Fans on r/SquaredCircle trace it back to Impact Wrestling shows, and rival lists place the same moment at the start of the following decade. By the time WWE crowds picked it up, it already had a rhythm and a meaning attached.
WWE’s adoption is the moment most long-time fans actually remember. Once arena crowds started firing it, it spread between promotions the way chants always do, because a chant is a piece of portable software. Any crowd that hears another crowd use it will copy the pattern within a show or two.
Who Started It: The MSL Claim Fans Still Argue About
There is a competing story that never went away. MSL, a host on MLW radio, claimed in a Reddit thread that he started the chant before TNA crowds picked it up. Nobody has confirmed it, and long-time fans usually assume at least half the arena does not know the origin anyway.
So the honest answer is that the chant has two parents. TNA crowds are where it became a wrestling tradition, and the earlier claim exists, is unverified, and still gets brought up every few years on r/SquaredCircle.
How the Chant Jumped Into WWE Arenas
Once a WWE audience started it, the pattern repeated the way these things do. Fans copied it from the section next to them, phone videos spread it, and it moved from a big-show novelty into the default vocabulary of live wrestling.
It was never the only chant in the building. “One-fall,” “holy shit,” and pop chants all ran at the same time. This one simply became the loudest and most recognizable.
What Types of Wrestling Moments Prompt the Chant?
The chant fires hardest in a small number of situations, and once you know them you will start hearing them everywhere:
- Debuts and returns. A wrestler walking out to a crowd that knows exactly how rare a comeback is.
- Stacked finishers. Two or three signature moves landing in the same sequence rather than one at a time.
- The kickout. A near fall at the right second, which fans treat as a genuine achievement.
- Title wins and title changes. The biggest releases of noise tend to land here.
- Surprise entrances. Music hits, nobody knows who it is, and the arena figures it out in real time.
- Empty-ring chants. The strangest version. Fans chant in an empty ring, essentially arguing with the show about what it should be doing next.
Inside a promotion, a debut tends to draw the biggest reaction because there is history attached to it. A return after a long injury layoff often does more.
Why Do Fans Chant It Before Anything Has Happened?
Because the chant is often used as an instruction, not a reaction. A section that starts “This Is Awesome” before the bell is telling the room what the next ten minutes should feel like, and plenty of fans admit on r/SquaredCircle that it is a self-hype ritual more than a judgement.
It also works as group belief. Thousands of people committing to the same phrase makes everyone in the building feel like they are part of something, which is the real product an arena is selling.
What Makes It Different From Other Wrestling Chants?
Most chants are specific. “What?” belongs to Stone Cold, “yes, yes, yes” belongs to Daniel Bryan, “ole” came in with Sami Zayn from football crowds. “This Is Awesome” is attached to nobody, which lets any fan use it about anything.
That lack of an owner is its defining feature and the reason it spread so widely.
How Has the Chant Spread Across Wrestling Promotions?
Today you will hear it in WWE arenas, at AEW shows, on TNA cards and in independent venues where the crowd is smaller and often far more inventive. The words are the same everywhere; the delivery changes with the building.
Regional crowds differ. UK and European audiences tend to build layered custom chants, while big American arenas lean on the big three-word calls, where volume over a large floor carries further than a layered routine. AEW crowds tend to use the chant more deliberately and with more irony attached.
What has changed most is frequency. Long-time fans note that WWE crowds fired it constantly in the early 2010s and far less often now. Part of that is chant fatigue, part is a roster that offers fewer obvious moments, and part is that newer crowds build their own chants instead of inheriting one.
Why Does ‘This Is Awesome’ Feel Different From Other Wrestling Chants?
| Chant | What it means | Where it came from | When fans use it | Status today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This Is Awesome | The work is exceeding expectations | TNA crowds, around 2008 | Any moment that feels better than normal | Still common, less constant |
| What? | Ignoring an opponent, mocking authority | Stone Cold Steve Austin | Someone is being talked down to | Still used, heavily dated |
| Holy Shit | Straight shock at something unexpected | British wrestling crowds, spread by American wrestlers | A genuine surprise spot | Strong in the UK |
| One-fall | No disqualifications, one fall decides it | Traditional no-DQ stipulation cry | The start of a falls match or a hardcore bout | Maintained by hardcore fans |
| Yes! Yes! Yes! | Support for a beloved babyface | WWE crowds, tied to Daniel Bryan | Before or during a big match | Used, then deliberately dropped by some wrestlers |
| Ole! | Good-humoured cheering, often sarcastic | Sami Zayn, borrowed from football terraces | Zayn’s matches, then copied elsewhere | Wrestler-specific |
The table makes the distinction obvious. Five of those six chants belong to a wrestler or a stipulation. Only one is pure applause that anyone can use about anyone.
That is also why it feels flatter to some people. A chant tied to a specific wrestler builds a relationship with the performer, while a generic one just reacts to the moment.
Why Do Some Fans Dislike the Chant?
The criticism is real and it takes up a lot of space on wrestling forums. Eric Bischoff has publicly called the chant obnoxious and juvenile, arguing that unlike a chant for a promotion or a wrestler, it is not aimed at anyone in particular.
Long-time fans add their own complaints. It fires during matches that are objectively bad, including botched moments, which feels like mockery rather than praise. It also crowded out more organic wrestler-specific chants that older fans miss.
And there is the fatigue argument. When the same three words run every ninety seconds for two years, an audience that once read them as excitement starts hearing filler. A few fans have taken to chanting “what?” deliberately during the chant to mock it, which has become its own small tradition.
None of that makes the chant fake. A crowd chanting something it does not mean is still doing what a live crowd does, which is react to what is in front of it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where did the u0022This Is Awesomeu0022 chant come from?
The chant is generally credited to TNA Wrestling crowds around 2008, and it spread into WWE arenas later that decade. An earlier claim exists: MSL, an MLW radio host, said he started it before TNA crowds picked it up, and fans still argue about it on r/SquaredCircle without a firm answer.
Who started the u0022What?u0022 chant in WWE?
The u0022What?u0022 chant is credited to Stone Cold Steve Austin. Fans would shout u0022what?u0022 whenever he was being talked down or ordered to do something, turning his refusal to follow instructions into a bit that played across years of WWE storylines. It is the most wrestler-specific chant on the list.
Why do WWE fans chant u0022one fall?
Fans yell u0022one fallu0022 at the start of falls matches and hardcore bouts because it tells everyone the key rule: the match ends when one wrestler is pinned or falls, with no disqualifications and usually no count-outs. The chant doubles as a warning that the finish could come from anywhere.
What does the crowd chant at wrestling shows?
The most common calls are u0022This Is Awesome,u0022 u0022holy shit,u0022 u0022what?u0022 and u0022one fall.u0022 Wrestler-specific chants like u0022yes, yes, yesu0022 for Daniel Bryan or u0022oleu0022 for Sami Zayn still run at their own matches. Entrance music and pop chants fill the rest of the card.
Does WWE use fake crowd noise?
Productions do layer in additional crowd sound, including pop reactions, alongside the live audience. That is normal broadcast practice and applies to every major sporting event. It does not mean the chant itself is triggered from the booth: fans start u0022This Is Awesomeu0022 on their own, sometimes before the match has even begun.
Is the u0022This Is Awesomeu0022 chant annoying?
It depends on the fan and the card. Critics point to chant fatigue, to it firing during bad wrestling, and to it replacing wrestler-specific chants that felt more personal. Eric Bischoff has called it obnoxious and juvenile. Supporters argue that a live crowd reacting together is the point of the show.
Conclusion
The chant comes from TNA crowds around 2008, spread into WWE arenas, and belongs to nobody. Fans use it because it is the fastest way to turn a good moment into a shared one, and because a section chanting together is the part of live wrestling that a recording cannot reproduce.
Next time you hear it, listen for the rhythm rather than the words. Rising on “this,” breaking on “is,” landing on “awesome,” then clapping. That is the whole origin story compressed into three syllables.
