I Listen So You Don't Have To: Cheap Heat w/Noelle Foley

Hell in a Cell talk was there, but it paled in comparison to RAW gabbing Photo Credit: WWE.com

If you're new, here's the rundown: I listen to a handful of wrestling podcasts each week. Too many, probably, though certainly not all of them. In the interest of saving you time — in case you have the restraint to skip certain episodes — the plan is to give the bare bones of a given show and let you decide if it’s worth investing the time to hear the whole thing. There are better wrestling podcasts out there, of course, but these are the ones in my regular rotation that I feel best fit the category of hit or miss. If I can save other folks some time, I'm happy to do so.

Show: Cheap Heat
Episode: Oct. 30, 2014
Run Time: 1:19:12
Guest: Noelle Foley

Summary: David “Stench Winslow” Shoemaker and Peter “Heel” Rosenberg are joined in studio by Noelle Foley to discuss the Hell In A Cell pay-per-view and subsequent RAW. There are a few diversions, predictably including the Cell exploits of Foley’s grandmother’s baby boy, her nascent in-ring career, and broad criticisms of the WWE ringside announcing crew.

Quote of the week: Shoemaker: “This is wrestling. Nothing’s ever over. These two guys are going to wrestle again 4,000 — like, when we’re recording episode 936 of ‘Cheap Heat’ in five years, we’re going to be complaining about Ambrose and Rollins the way people are complaining about Orton and Cena right now. They’re going to fight over and over again.”

Why you should listen: Once again, Cheap Heat is wise to wait until the RAW dust settles before reviewing the pay-per-view. If you’re feeling generally positive — not over the moon, but optimistic — about the narrative direction of the last week, the crew generally affirms that viewpoint, though there is fair discussion about inconclusive match endings and the way storytelling is evolving in the Network era.

Why you should skip it: RAW talk outnumbers Hell In A Cell review about two to one. Though guests usually soften his rough edges, Rosenberg trends toward the more unbearable side of his act. As usual, Shoemaker’s PPV thoughts were presented far more lucidly in written form earlier in the week on Grantland. Having Foley weigh in is a decent touch, but even she doesn’t add anything to talk of her father tumbling off the cell in 1998.

Final thoughts: While I come to praise Cheap Heat for incorporating RAW into the PPV discussion (something Jim Ross hasn’t grasped), I fail to understand why Rosenberg seemed so insistent on plowing through Hell In A Cell to talk about RAW. There’s 12 PPVs a year and 52 RAWs, and they labor over the latter’s minutiae nearly every week. The end result is an episode that — aside from Foley, who again would make a great cohost for Shoemaker should Rosenberg take a leave of absence — doesn’t stand out from any other, and that should be the entire point of a supercard episode.