The Random Wrestling Review- Podcast!

What else could the world need more in 2021, than yet another podcast featuring 3 white guys in their 30’s talking about wrestling?! Actually a lot more, but we’re hoping you’ll settle for this. Ben, Tom and Sam are 3 long-time friends who have each been watching wrestling for the last 30 years and here, each week, they will select a wrestling show from the past at random and then talk about it. It’s a heady mix of in-depth analysis, juvenile humour and everything in between.

WWE Royal Rumble 2020

The WWE’s critical fanbase (by which I mean the members of its audience who actively enjoy wrestling with a critical eye) is roughly split down the middle on one key element of WWE’s presentation- the use, promotion and dominance of Brock Lesnar. For every fan that thinks Lesnar brings a much needed shot of legitimacy and crossover appeal to proceedings there is another who believes that Lesnar’s positioning has come at the detriment of the rest of WWE’s roster and precluded others from breaking through in a major way with a larger audience. As a consequence of this split, your opinion of this year’s Royal Rumble event is likely in large part coloured by your general opinion of ‘The Beast’, thanks to the solo show that Lesnar put on in the first 20-25 minutes of the men’s Royal Rumble match. It was Lesnar’s attempt to win the Rumble by entering in the number 1 spot that was the main selling point of what many consider to be the most anticipated match of the year and therefore massively played into the perception of a show that actually, contained a whole lot more than just the WWE Champion’s exploits.

WWE Wrestlemania 35

At Wrestlemania 35, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey broke new ground by headlining the biggest wrestling event of the year. WWE’s decision to sanction their match as the main event made a statement that may be more powerful for the continued struggle for gender balance within pro wrestling than any other moment in its history- it said that this year, with all being equal, the match between these 3 women was the most important match in the company. That is the endorsement that comes with every Wrestlemania main event, it is this which drove master politicians such as Triple H and Hulk Hogan to work so hard to position themselves there so often, it is this reason that so many people were desperate for Daniel Bryan to headline at Wrestlemania 30 and the justification CM Punk gave for labelling his own career as a failure, having never competed at that level. It comes with this endorsement because this is WWE’s biggest money event of the year- by a very long way- it doesn’t determine who is in this position lightly because it’s too important to the company for it to fail. At Wrestlemania 35 WWE told its entire roster and staff, and every WWE fan in the world that the biggest draw it had was a contest for the Women’s title belts. This isn’t propaganda, this isn’t some kind of exercise in PR, this is business, as cold, cynical and money obsessed as ever- this year, the women were more of a draw than the men.