I Listen So You Don't Have To: Cheap Heat June 30

The gang talks about this match and more 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: June 30, 2015
Run Time: 1:02:07
Guest: None

Summary: It’s another in-studio week for Peter Rosenberg, David Shoemaker and Stat Guy Greg, who talk about the most recent RAW — with breakouts on Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro vs. John Cena, the Seth Rollins gift presentation and the Divas scene. They share a bit about Big Show on Talk Is Jericho and Del Wilkes on the Steve Austin Show, then spend a good deal of time arguing over WWE.com’s list of the top superstars of the current millennium, then take a wild left turn into looking at the very unimpressive list of entrants into the 2000 and 2001 Royal Rumbles.

Quote of the week:“Being constrained by calendar years when you’re ranking wrestlers is really a mind eff. Because the wrestling world doesn’t work this way. There’s no, ‘He was the all-star of the 2000 season,’ you just can’t look back at it that way. And it seems like ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin was the biggest wrestler in the world from … 98 to 2002, and there were, at any given point, you could say that even though he was the biggest star, somebody else had a better year.”

Why you should listen: The righteous indignation of the dotcom list is actually pretty great. I’ve yet to read a WWE listicle that didn’t inspire me to rend my laptop, and there’s something great about the guys putting their voices to the rage I feel when encountering such pap. The praise and pan of RAW was nearly identical to what I’ve read elsewhere online already, but sometimes there’s comfort in having those opinions confirmed.

Why you should skip it: Rosenberg is again more interested in his soundboard than the podcast. There’s a total diversion at the beginning when he and Greg are watching a video on their phones, and another tangent about halfway through to discuss sizing of wrestling T-shirts throughout the years. And somehow the closing segues into a discussion of True Detective, just in case you haven’t heard enough about that show from Grantland personalities (spoiler alert: you’ve totally heard enough).

Final thoughts: You can safely take a pass here. This one is in parts amusing but, while largely absent of some of the show’s stereotypical infuriating flashes, rather unimportant on the whole. It would have been nice to get even a hint of mention of the upcoming July 4 Network special, but apparently that’s off everyone’s radar.