10 Best Matches From The WWE ThunderDome Era

5. Drew McIntyre Vs Sheamus (Raw, March 1st 2021)

Kofi Kingston Street Profits
WWE.com

Not content with throwing his body into everything away from the ring inside WWE's dystopian Zoom conference, Sheamus proved he had the formula for a perfect ThunderDome television match too in this hidden gem from the March 1st Raw.

It's funny (and incompetent) - thanks to WWE's content churn it's highly possible people will remember this encounter between the former friends the least from the wars they had ahead of WrestleMania 37. More's the pity too, because it was the best of the lot.

There was much to enjoy about their No Holds Barred payoff at Fastlane and the stairs-on-head conclusion to a wild No Disqualification brawl on March 8th, but this thoroughbred original found the former friends beating the sh*t out of each other in a way that didn't need Instagram photos of painful welts after the fact. Because the company tells stories backwards, this was the cleanest and most decisive of their series too.

The match ebbed and flowed and bristled and built and concluded with spit and sweat and imaginary blood flying everywhere as two behemoths genuinely fought for a genuine cause they genuinely believed in. Or at least, thank f*ck, it actually felt that way for a change.

Never had one of the simplest ways to do wrestling right felt like such an outlier, but on a show flooded with black goo, pathetic champions and wall-to-wall losers, it glistened like the last star in a once-stacked sky.

 
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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett