10 Biggest Frauds In Wrestling Right Now

4. "Premium Live Event"

Roman Reigns The Usos Bloodline
WWE.com

"Premium Live Event" is, if nothing else, an excellent title that has at long last replaced pay-per-view in company vernacular several years after the phrase became redundant.

The advent of the WWE Network brought about the company themselves calling people fools for putting money down on the monthly events, and after eventually flogging that service to Peacock, the organisation finally landed on a way to describe the live Sunday night shows that broadly serve as bookends for most of the nonsense on Mondays and Fridays.

"Premium", though?

The events are many things. Match-heavy and with limited time allotted to tropes and scripting that pollute the contemporary product, they are perhaps the best possible representation of WWE in 2022. Or a very least the most digestible. But "shortcut to most optimal content consumption" doesn't exactly scan as premium does it?

WrestleMania 38 closed with Roman Reigns holding both belts aloft and he's not defended them on one of these cards since. Ditto Unified Tag Team Champions The Usos. Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins worked a thriller of a trilogy in the same period of time but the quality was and is a rule proving exception, with Bobby Lashley and Omos' similar series providing the evidence. Drew McIntyre called his Clash Of The Castle title shot on Hell In A Cell's go-home SmackDown despite doing nothing that justified a spot in June ahead of his big night in September.

A lot to like, but the label's a lie.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 7 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 almost 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 60,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL 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