Cheap Heat

The Cheap Heat Pro Wrestling Podcast, hosted by Billy Sullivan and Dave Alinovich, will focus on the week's happenings in WWE and AEW. It will be a comedy-centric show. In this beta test episode, Billy discusses three matches from his top 50 list. He talks about Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay, MJF vs. Bryan Danielson in an Iron Man match, and Roman Reigns vs. Sammy Zane. Billy praises the drama and brutality of the matches, but criticizes the finish of Roman vs. Sammy. The podcast will officially launch next week. Hello everybody and welcome to the Cheap Heat Pro Wrestling Podcast. Once we start this podcast in earnest, it'll be myself, your host, Billy Sullivan, along with my pro wrestling life mate, Dave Alinovich, talking about the week's comings and goings in the big two, WWE and AEW. We're not going to be giving you blow by blow recaps of the shows, nor star ratings, which are silly to begin with, because you can get those in a myriad of ways, about a billion different podcasts, YouTube channels, whatever. People love doing their rankings and breakdowns. What we're going to bring for you is hopefully the giggles. It's going to be a comedy-centric or comedy-forward wrestling podcast. But that starts next week when we actually launch the podcast in earnest. Like I said, today is just a beta test and I'm going to give you a little bit of dry wrestling opinion. I'm going to talk about three matches from my top 50. Yes, I do a top 50 every year for no one but myself because I am an insufferable nerd. My friends get annoyed with me when I text it to them, attached as PDFs even, because the text alone wouldn't be annoying enough. But I don't care because I want everyone to see the work that I put in and understand that my opinion is the only correct one when it comes to wrestling matches. I'm not going to be talking about all 50. I'll just be talking about three today just to give you a little taste. I'll try to vary what types of matches there are and I'll give you a little breakdown of why I love each match so much and why they made it to my top 50 list. So without further ado, the first match I want to talk about is Kenny Omega, Kenny by God Omega versus the Billy Goat Will Ospreay at Forbidden Door. Now I know there's some dispute as to whether the Forbidden Door match was the superior match or New Japan Wrestle Kingdom match that they had earlier in the year. A lot of people go with that NJPW match. I personally like the presentation of AEW a little bit better than NJPW. I know that's going to revel some feathers. And I really do like the sports-oriented broadcast thing that they do, but it can sometimes take a little bit away from the drama for me. As a guy that grew up watching movies like Kickboxer and Bloodsport, I like a little cinematic lighting and melodrama with my wrestling, just a little bit. And also the big spot in the Wrestle Kingdom match was that DDT on the top turnbuckle, which looked brutal, but it also was very silly. And there's no way to set that move up and make it even slightly plausible to the point where we can suspend our disbelief. It's just my opinion. Whereas the spots in the Forbidden Door, the Tiger Driver 91, which I don't care what anybody says, when it's two guys like Kenny and the Billy Goat, it's safe. Kenny knows how to tuck his head, and otherwise the move is not really that dissimilar from Made in Japan or the JML Driver. So people get their panties in a bunch about that for no reason. But then after Osprey hit the One-Winged Angel and Kenny did the kickout at one, it was the best one of those I've ever seen. The crowd went absolutely nuclear. We at my house went nuclear. It was awesome. And then ultimately for Kenny to lose that match, too, I think it added to it the drama. And then just generally, overall, the match just felt much more brutal. Blood had something to do with that, I'm sure, but they really felt like they were trying to kill each other. And that makes it the better match in my mind, and they're both almost perfect. So that's why this one made my list. The second match I'll be talking about today is MJF versus Bryan Danielson from AEW Revolution. It was the Iron Man match, and the reason that this match made my list is a very simple one. Not simple at all, but very simple. The reason is that Iron Man matches suck ass. They always suck ass. Brett and Sean sucked ass. All of them are boring, rest-holdy slogs. Unless it's like a 30-minute. 30 minutes are okay, but 60-minute Iron Mans are just always, always slogs. And you know what? MJF and Bryan Danielson, they went hard as fuck for the entirety of that match. No rest holds, the crowd chanting, fight forever at the 45-minute mark of an Iron Man match. And then still had the energy and drive to do a great finish and be so precise even towards the end of that match. After 60 minutes of just going 100 miles an hour. I did not think that anyone could do that, let alone MJF at that point. I had already come around on MJF as a great in-ring performer, but I had no suspicion that he would be able to go that long and that hard considering his wrestling history prior to that. That man can do anything. He does every aspect of professional wrestling at a level that is equal to or higher than everyone else on earth. Probably my match of the year. So my next pick for the match I would like to talk about, just for fairness sake, I'm going to go off of my AEW beaten path a little bit and go with a Roman Reigns match. I know Roman is very controversial. He divides opinion. As far as in-ring, I don't know how because the man has been nothing but fantastic his entire career. He was a little green for the first couple of years, but for a green performer with only a handful of moves in his arsenal, that dude brought the drama. His character is terrible. Yeah, we all know that. That's obvious. But that really wasn't Roman's fault. And since he's been the head of the table, that entrance is the most video game final boss entrance I've ever seen. It's awesome. And it has made his character just, oh, so much cooler and scarier, seemingly unbeatable. And the match I'm talking about here is actually Roman Reigns versus Sammy, Sammy Zane, Elimination Chamber. The Cody match at Romania was good as well. But honestly, this is the biggest blunder I think that WWE made last year. Roman was the bad guy, the main bad guy in WWE and the protagonist of that program. Because WWE, I've always heard this and I like this phrase. I think it explains the company very well that WWE is not a wrestling show. It's a show about a wrestling show. And Sammy Zane was the protagonist, the beloved protagonist of that show about a wrestling show. And to have that match in Montréal, Sammy's hometown, just electric, super, super hot crowd. And the only narrative ending that makes any sense to that entire bloodline saga that went on is Sammy's redemption. Sammy becoming his own man and winning the title, finally being the one to take down the gaslighting evil monster Roman Reigns. But instead, they had Sammy lose and gave him a consolation prize in the tag titles on the not really main event of WrestleMania. Really, really huge bummer. But that terrible finish cannot wipe away what was, I think, Roman's best match ever. Sammy's head better because Sammy's amazing. He can't quite do what he used to do when he was El Generico or his early NXT runs. But even slowed down a bit, he's an absolutely phenomenal entering performer. And I think he got the most out of Roman. The finish, man, that solo Sokoa with the stupid thumb spike, again. Just get creative. If you're going to cheat, get a little more creative. Really, that garbage finish almost made me remove it from my top 50. But I can't, I can't. Sammy's year was so amazing. His performance as far as acting goes. In-ring goes, facials, all of it. He was amazing and he deserves to be the guy to unseat Roman. Huge, huge mistake and I don't think it can be made up for. But still, a wonderful, absolutely riveting match. Okay, so that's where I'll leave it today. It's going to be a short one, like I said, and a little bit dry. I didn't do very much humor because this is more of a show. I'm doing to make sure I know how to put up a podcast before we record our first actual Cheap Heat podcast in earnest coming this week. I really hope you all join me and my buddy Dave. We'll have a lot of fun. Thanks a lot. Have a good day. Bye.