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?



It is a hard call between whether The Shield reunion or Sami Zayn’s heel turn was the best thing in wrestling this past week, but I am going to have to go with the SmackDown Live side of things here.

While no means perfect, the heel turn was completely unexpected and, gave us a huge surprise ending for Hell in a Cell. Compare that to The Shield reunion, which literally had articles on WWE.com predicting its arrival. Yes, it was very cool, but did not feel essential to me at this exact time.

Now, compare this to plucky Sami Zayn. Despite his immense popularity, ever since he reached the main roster he has been stuck in a trajectory purgatory. Aside from his great feuds with Kevin Owen, there has been very few angles or moments of great note for the charismatic Canadian. But now? Crossing a McMahon and uniting with Owens should mean that he is no longer destined to languish on the lower-card.

Admittedly, Zayn is not an obvious heel, and he will need to change his music and work on being less smiley, but it will be interesting to see how he handles the transition to such a role. In addition, how will he, and Kevin Owens work together? What consequences await him from Shane McMahon? There is a lot of potential here, and I look forward to seeing how it might pan out.



These past few weeks of Raw saw Bray Wyatt continue his feud with Finn Balor, but with the tantalising tease that Bray’s sister would soon be joining him. Naturally, this created a lot of excitement among fans. The idea of a female Wyatt family always seemed a no-brainer, and surely it was not a matter of if, but when? It did not even matter that she was supposed to be dead!

Fans were ready for this, and speculation began to build over who could take the role? Various female wrestlers dropped hints via twitter that it was them, while many fans felt that it was going to be gifted to a returning Paige.

However, it is sadly becoming clear that we are not getting Sister Abigal as her own living breath entity. Instead, Bray merely channels her soul and puts on a veil and make-up. All good and well for pre-taped promos, but has anyone put thought into how he will do the voice without the aid of post-production? 

Furthermore, this transformation pushes Bray even further down the oooky spooky pigeon-hole, and less like the cult leader character that he originally devised.

Bray works better when he has disciples, and this was a perfect opportunity to give him a new one.

A part of me still hopes that this is a swerve, and Abigail will still exist outside of a titantron and sound editing program, but this hope is slowly diminishing with each episode.

Of course, this may turn out to be the best thing that he has ever done. After all, they have had four years to figure out how best to implement this…


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!