WWE bizarrely donated ample time to February's Fastlane across both brands during go-home week - jarring perhaps most of all because of how so many roster were staring straight past it towards the infamous WrestleMania sign that looms over all and sundry following the Royal Rumble.
It was a sign CM Punk captioned with an iconic depressed Dusty Rhodes line about 24 hours before his acrimonious WWE exit in 2014. A sign Randy Orton seemed intent on punting harder than Vince McMahon when he won the 30-man war in 2009. A sign that seemed to hate Roman Reigns as much as the Philadelphia crowd when it simply refused to fire rockets in time with his fist-pump pose at the end of the 2015 Rumble, even though there was already one strapped to his back.
It's the literal manifestation of every Superstar™️'s trajectory from January onwards, signposted for any member of the WWE Universe™️ that requires their hand holding on the Road To WrestleMania™️, where, if the main roster's best and brightest have built enough momentum™️ they'll have a WrestleMania Moment™️ to last a lifetime.
The sudden investment in the pay-per-view requests the sudden investment in several stars just weeks removed from the event that's framed as a long-awaited season finale. So how to WWE piece together the perfect set-piece for the beginning of the end?
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he 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 on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
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 music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
