The WWE Crown Jewel event in Perth opened with an unexpected storm when local fans booed the American national anthem.<\/p>\n
Moments before wrestling royalty John Cena wowed a 13,000-strong crowd at RAC Arena on Saturday night, the mood took a dark turn when local performer Sophie Foster opened the event by singing the Star Spangled Banner before Advance Australia Fair.<\/p>\n
Video footage of the crowd heavily booing the performance by Foster has gone viral, with some on social media questioning why Australia\u2019s national anthem wasn\u2019t played first given the event was on home soil.<\/p>\n
TV techs on the ground level could be heard calling for audio to be cut, according to one attendee, who also noted that the booing was louder than the response to many of the WWE heels.<\/p>\n
However, the boos turned into cheers when Turner followed up with Australia\u2019s national anthem, with the crowd passionately singing at the top of their lungs.<\/p>\n
One person on X posted: \u201cNever understood why WWE do the American nation anthem In other countries when they are obviously gonna get boo\u2019d.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another said: \u201cThere is literally no need for the US anthem before a @WWE event in Australia…boo away Perth! #CrownJewel.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, others slammed the booing as \u201cpoor form\u201d, with one even suggesting the WWE boycott Australia for future tours.<\/p>\n
\u201cSickening for the WWE fans in Australia (who are some of the most restricted \u201cfree\u201d people in the world) to BOO the GREAT AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM. WWE should go on a multi-year hiatus from touring there!\u201d the person said.<\/p>\n
Australian WWE star Grayson Waller said he felt the booing was fans being theatrical instead of insulting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just like an in thing right now to boo the US national anthem. I\u2019m very proud that I get to live in the US right now,\u201d he told The West Australian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of being in America. It didn\u2019t mean anything. People are making it bigger than it is. It was just a situation where it was cool to boo the anthem at the time. I\u2019m just more proud that I got to hear the Australian national anthem at a WWE show.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Premier Roger Cook said no form of booing was acceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not alright, it is never alright, to comment or make noises negatively about another country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
WWE chief content officer Triple H did not comment on the incident when reflecting on the match, instead talking up Perth being an \u201cincredible city\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything has been off the charts. Talent have been enjoying it here for a few days. They\u2019ve been swimming with dolphins, hanging out and just having a great time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank Tourism Western Australia for bringing us here again. We\u2019ve had an amazing partnership with them now for quite a few years, between us and UFC. It\u2019s been epic. Tonight was no different.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understood Cena has since departed Perth, with the Hollywood star boarding a flight to Sydney late last night after the performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WWE Crown Jewel event in Perth opened with an unexpected storm when local fans booed the American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,44,46,588,20274],"class_list":{"0":"post-207291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-perth","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-wrestling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}