In back to back screenings for the Introduction to Film and Television Studies course I’m convening, the students have done something really strange and wondrous.

Last week, after four weeks of nonstop chattering during the screening, they were almost completely silent during The Informant!. Maybe it was the presence of a Movie Star in a film they hadn’t seen. At the end of the film, probably a dozen students applauded. In twelve years of university teaching I’ve never heard applause at the end of a screening.

This week, the first part of the screening was the first episode of The Wire (2002). They were really quiet again. Then, because we had another hour scheduled, I ran one segment from the post-Money in the Bank Raw.

At first, there was a wave of snickering and visible eye-rolling. But as the segment went on, they got quieter and quieter. When the segment ended, with Punk half-dead on the floor behind the announce table, with Lesnar and Heyman hemming him in to the centre-rear of the frame, I hit stop. A chorus of “awwws” from the crowd followed. They wanted to keep watching. That, dear reader, is a money promo in action.