Smark Out Moment

Welcome to another edition of Cheap Pop and Cheap Heat from Smark Out Moment! Each week, we break down the world of professional wrestling and examine two of the polar opposite ends of the spectrum: one thing that was by far the worst thing (Cheap Heat) and the best thing (Cheap Pop) to happen over the past 7 days in sports entertainment. So, what went down this week that we loved and hated about the business?



Around a month ago, I wrote about my delight in women's tag belts being introduced, but that I did have two caveats I felt that they needed. Make sure that they are not a reskinned version of the lackluster men's belts, and to have just one set of titles across all brands.Thankfully, both of these wishes have now come to pass.

Sure, the belt doth not maketh the woman, but the woman maketh the belt, but there is no denying that it is an added bonus that they are easily one of the better looking current main roster titles. No copy and pasting here!

In addition, having them available to win on either roster is going to be interesting. I have seen some people complain that both brands should have them, but would you rather be the champion of 50? Or the champion of 25? Obviously, those are not the figures of the division, but you get the idea.

Given the much smaller roster, having two sets would really make them little more than a participation trophy. It would be pretty hard to not eventually wind up winning them at some point.

How feuds will play out if teams on different brands cannot clash on television remains to be, but I think that this will really help freshen up the formula and force some extra creativity from the powers that be.



When WWE began promising us big changes were afoot, I did not think that would include downgrading the debuts of their new NXT characters to little more than glorified film extras. Ok, to be fair, Nikki Cross did not too badly getting to be the mystery partner of Bayley and Natalya, but it is debatable whether this counts given that she had a one-off appearance on SmackDown last year.

As for the rest? Well, we had such delights as Lacy Evans being pointed out in the background by Michael Cole as Finn Balor went by, and EC3 doing some flexing and smiling.

Amazing.

Did we really sit through all those video packages for this?

Thankfully, Heavy Machinery got a bit more of a prominent role by getting to appear on a Moment of Bliss and make a disgusting protein shake, but neither was exactly laying John Cena out in your first match a la Kevin Owens.

Will the new model of small and steady win the race? Or will the call-ups struggle to make an impact with fans that are not so au fait with the rumblings of NXT?

Only time will tell.


So there you have it, my two choices for the week. What do YOU think are the Cheap Pop and Cheap Heat this week in professional wrestling? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!