As a whole, audience chants at pro wrestling shows these days are ... creative?
That’s the nice way of putting it. The mean way to put it would be to call them obnoxious, but that’s not really what I mean either.
“Bald,” “Meat,” “This is awesome,” “Fight forever,” “You deserve it” and “What,” are some of the popular chants going as we roll into 2026. As creative as they are, they mostly exist to get over the audience screaming them and aren’t a genuine reaction to what’s happening in the ring.
Except on Wednesday night.
On Wednesday night in Las Vegas during the main event of AEW Dynamite, a perfect chant broke out in the crowd before MJF and Brody King could tie up and start their match. It was a chant that the country needed and one that only pro wrestling fans could pull off.
“Fuck ICE”
The chant was “fuck ICE.” A new one for wrestling fans, but fitting given the current state of affairs in the United States.
Brody King wrestled MJF in an AEW World Championship Eliminator Match this week on the show. King has been outspoken about being pro “Fuck ICE” and has raised money for immigration organizations on multiple occasions since ICE began painting their black marks all over the country last year.
The AEW audience remembered that and not only cheered on King to win his match and earn a shot at the AEW World Championship, but they cheered on his outspokenness. How cool is that?
Here’s the thing. Pro wrestling fans are loud. When they are loudest, the people making decisions listen.
Think CM Punk in 2011. Daniel Bryan in 2014. Cody Rhodes in 2024. Hell, the existence of AEW at all. Each of these memorable moments in pro wrestling history came on the heels of wrestling fans getting loud and making themselves heard. That noise created change.
It’ll take more noise than ever for wrestling fans to help kick ICE the hell off streets in the United States, but hey, they just might be up for the challenge. Opportunity knocks.
Look, I’m certainly not sitting here comparing some silly wrestling angles to US citizens getting abducted by their own government. But, loud works and if there is anything to get loud about, it’s fucking ICE.
Millions are watching
Across the three major pro wrestling companies in the United States, pro wrestling is on television every single day of the work week. Some weeks the run of televised wrestling content pushes into the weekend with PLE’s or other special events.
Inside of all of that pro wrestling programming is millions of viewers across every distribution platform imaginable. Broadcast, cable, streaming, YouTube — you name it. There’s power in that kind of volume.
Remember when NBA audiences, college basketball fans, and various dugouts in Major League Baseball copied the “Yes” chant during the Daniel Bryan Yes Movement in WWE? All of that mainstream adoption was born out of people seeing it on wrestling TV.
Various media outlets picked up the news about the AEW Dynamite main event on Thursday morning the night after it happened. That’s a start.
“Fuck ICE.” Man, that’s a good one. Thank you AEW fans in Las Vegas. To the rest of the wrestling fans out there, I say keep it going. Millions are watching you … literally.
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Follow Zack Heydorn on Bluesky @zackheydorn.bsky.social.