I Listen So You Don't Have To: Cheap Heat April 1

Heyman has a pre-tape interview on Cheap Heat this week 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: April 1, 2015
Run Time: 1:02:43
Guest: Paul Heyman (48:22)

Summary: David Shoemaker and Peter Rosenberg are back in New York after a trip to WrestleMania. Moving past an April Fools’ “joke,” the guys review the Show of Shows, including Rosenberg’s frustrations with the Hall of Fame ceremony. Beside a few thoughts on RAW and potential matches for WrestleMania 32, the bulk of the time is spent rehashing Sunday in Santa Clara. The show ends with a 14-minute clip of a pre-Mania interview with Paul Heyman that didn’t make the cut for last week’s preview show but was released on Rosenberg’s SoundCloud account.

Quote of the week: Shoemaker, on Brock Lesnar as WWE’s No. 1 good guy: “He’s just so much bigger than Daniel Bryan, and not physically. And I say this as a huge Daniel Bryan mark, but (Lesnar’s) just such a big deal that once he becomes kind of an official foil of The Authority, you’re going to have a hard time, SummerSlam or WrestleMania next year, arguing that Daniel Bryan deserves the spot that Brock Lesnar’s getting as opposed to this year when people were saying he deserved the Roman Reigns spot.”

Why you should listen: Since the guys attended the show live, and Shoemaker sat in at least two different sections, including ringside, this review more so than the others is heavily focused on the in-arena experience. It’s also the one that best accounts for the whole of RAW and not just the Brock Lesnar segments. And there’s a little chatter about just being around the WrestleMania activities. The Heyman stuff is solid, and I highly recommend going back to last week’s show, especially for the Charlotte and Paige interviews. Most of the whole two-hour spectacular will hold up well even this far past WrestleMania.

Why you should skip it: The opening joke isn’t funny, even less so if you’re listening after April 1. There is zero talk about the NXT show, which is especially disappointing given how excited I was to hear Shoemaker’s thoughts. It would have been interesting even to hear about WaleMania or some of the other weekend stuff — Shoemaker’s written review was (as usual) a much better encapsulation of his feelings on the weekend — since everyone and their cousin has weighed in on how they viewed the show as televised. Cheap Heat should strive to be different, especially so when the source material is so well understood.

Final thoughts: I’m not really down on this episode, I was just more hopeful for a fresh spin from guys who were on the scene, and that means the whole scene, not just the main stage presentation. Steve Austin and Jim Ross, experienced as they are, watched the show on TV. And their recaps were far more comprehensive and organized. Instead of Cheap Heat being fresh, it was more like two guys catching up after a trip saying, “Hey, remember that time…” and the other interjecting with, “Yeah, that was great! Remember when…” and so on.