Even the most excellent heel promo couldn’t top the very first sound of the WWE’s latest international event in Perth, Australia: a sea of boos drowning out “The Star-Spangled Banner” — the US national anthem! Screams from 13,000 fans echoed through the stands at the RAC Arena, which made it difficult for Sophie Foster, the Australian singer picked to sing the US national anthem, to get past the opening. Later, her version of “Advance Australia Fair” was loud, proud, and sung by nearly every one of the fans in the building.
The odd event went viral on social media after being first reported by The West Australian. Videos of fans booing so loudly that Foster’s microphone looked helpless were all over X (formerly Twitter). The reasons for the icy reaction are more vague than a poorly executed heel turn. The crowd’s behavior was seen as “disrespectful” by some social media users, while others said it was simply standard wrestling theatrics, with fans booing anything that sounds like an opponent’s “theme music.”
Politics may have been involved as well. International opinion of the United States has fallen since Donald Trump retook office, and booing at events overseas hasn’t been rare. As one X user said, “It’s about what that anthem represents right now.” Others questioned why the US national anthem was even sung. After all, Australia, not the US, held the WWE Crown Jewel. Although it is typical for WWE to play both national anthems to kick off international matches, some feel that this can be tone-deaf during times of crisis.
Heavy boos from the Australian crowd for the U.S. national anthem#WWECrownJewel
— WrestlePurists (@WrestlePurists) October 11, 2025
This is by no means the first time that “The Star-Spangled Banner” has stirred up controversy. Francis Scott Key wrote the anthem during the War of 1812, and it has been sung in a variety of ways over the past 200 years. Outrage was sparked by José Feliciano’s bluesy 1968 rendition during the World Series. An anti-war anthem was created from Jimi Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock in 1969. The 1991 Super Bowl performance by Whitney Houston? Absolute perfection. The baseball disaster of Roseanne Barr in 1990? Anarchy.
The anthem is still a cultural lightning rod, though. From Fergie’s jazzy 2018 NBA All-Star performance that made players literally cringe to Christina Aguilera‘s forgetting the lyrics at Super Bowl XLV, “The Star-Spangled Banner” has both served as a platform for patriotic sentiment and a source of public ridicule. The U.S. anthem has seen everything, from boos in arenas to bombs in the air. Across continents, people are already looking at the response of the Perth crowd. Some see it as a reflection of the growing dissatisfaction with American politics and its current leadership on the global stage. Others see it as a form of entertainment.
After all, spectacle is what WWE is all about. It’s possible that the jeers were more about setting the tone for a match than they were about geopolitics. What could be more dramatic for wrestling fans than booing the world’s most well-known anthem in front of John Cena? No matter whether it was political, funny, or both, the Perth crowd made it very clear that fan sentiment is never fake. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is once again at the center of cultural debate as the WWE universe moves away from Perth’s uproar.
Clearly, the US national anthem can still draw attention after 200 years, for good or bad reasons!
