(slam, thud) Ding, ding, ding...
WhatCulture Wrestling is a YouTube channel from pop culture online network WhatCulture. It features a variety of shows, podcasts, and personalities centered around the ins and outs of the world of Professional Wrestling. These shows include:
- Ups and Downs - Simon Miller critiques some moments that happened on the most recent WWE shows.
- Why? - Simon takes a point of contention or a hot topic and breaks it down as to why something should or shouldn't be the case in the world of wrestling.
- WCPW - Founded as What Culture Pro Wrestling, now known as Defiant Wrestling; it was basically their own wrestling promotion, with the Adams (Blampied and Pacitti) in major creative roles. Over time, especially following the split (see below) and rebranding as "Defiant", it has become a distinct entity under the same company, with little/no overt cross-promotion.
In late 2017, citing creative differences and workplace culture, presenters Adam Blampiednote , Adam Pacitti, Jack "the Jobber", and "King" Ross Twedell, editor Sam Driver, and featured guests from the WhatCulture gaming channel Ben Potter and "Tiny" Peter Austin left to create their own channels, Cultaholic (on wrestling) and Triple Jump (on gaming). Following this, the channel shifted Simon into more of a lead presenter role, brought on new presenters, started new series, and shifted to focus more exclusively on WWE content.
You can find the channel here.
You can also check out the main site, which started the channel in the first place, here.
The shows from the pre-split era included examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Jack's heel turn in the summer of 2017 was shut down pretty quickly due to the overwhelming negative response from the fanbase.
- Affectionate Parody: Since they started incorporating storylines in their videos, they have been one of professional wrestling.
- Author Appeal: Adam Blampied's favourite wrestler of all time is Kurt Angle and he would regularly work Kurt into his fantasy booking wherever possible, either as a face (having him be the one to stop Goldberg's rampage) or a heel (the real mastermind behind Steve Austin being hit by a car).
- Beleaguered Assistant: Former editor Sam Driver. "Back to work, DICKHEAD!!!!!!"
- Berserk Button: Adam hates Santino Marella and R-Truth. Interestingly, Other Adam likes them.
- Big "OMG!": Occasionally happens during their reaction videos when something shocking happens, with none bigger than their reaction to Goldberg squashing Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series 2016.
- Breather Episode:
- The Roadblock stream is storyline free, just Adam and Simon relaxing and watching some wrestling with nothing on the line.
- The Final Deletion reaction video puts aside the BX / Pacitti Club feud as Adam, Jack, and Sam watch the latest chapter in Matt and Jeff Hardy's descent into madness.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Adam loves to imitate Other Adam and Jack's accents whenever he gets the chance.
- Crossover: Brian Zane and Grim (from Grim's Toy Show) try to take over WhatCulture in How They Should Have Booked The Invasion. Adam would later return the favour in Zane's Heroes of Wrestling review.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Averted; Adam blatantly cheated in all of his post Fastlane title defences, and retains each time. Karma eventually catches up with him though...
- Country Matters: Near the start of his Pipebomb video on "Is the Face/Heel Dynamic Dead?" (released as Patreon-restricted content as WhatCulture Extra rather than being released on YouTube, meaning he doesn't have to censor his swearing for fear of being demonetised) Adam calls Roman Reigns (at the height of his failed face push) "an objectionable cunt".
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After being beaten down by BX, going through several unpleasant forfeits, and losing control of his own show, Jack finally won the WhatCulture Championship at WrestleMania.
- Face/Heel Double-Turn: At the end of the Fastlane Adam vs. Adam, Sam and Suzie revealed that they were in BX all along, hand the title back to Adam, superkicks Jack, resulting in Adam and BX turning into dastardly heels, and Jack and Pacitti Club into sympathetic faces.
- Faux Affably Evil: Adam, after Fastlane.
- Gargle Blaster: The "Cena-Colada", a drink made out of wine, milk, mustard, tea, Tabasco, cinnamon and vinegar. Naturally, it's a forfeit.note Also, the "Long Island Big E", made of beer, "Sex on a Beach", cream, "Iron Bru", a lot of salt, mouthwash, goat urine and vinegar.
- #HashtagForLaughs: As with his other WhatCulture videos, Once an Episode, Ben will say "you could call it... Shit X for Wankers, #ShitXForWankers!", and taken to its extreme when discussing the father in The Mist:Ben: #S**tFatherWhoDraggedOutAScaryFogMonsterAttackByNotKillingHisSonSoonerForW**kers! Sorry, editor.
- Heel–Face Turn: Sam, in the WhatCultureMania forfeit video.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Sam.
- He's Back!: Adam Pacitti returned at the Extreme Rules reaction, cashing in and winning the championship.
- Incoming Ham: WTF Moments always started with "King" Ross shouting "Kiiiiiiiiiing!"
- Made of Iron: Jokes about Vince McMahon's impressive physique. He "cannot be killed by a trivial thing like a stampede of wildebeests; he would eat them first.
- Masochist's Meal: Other Adam ate a ghost chili as part of a forfeit.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg:
- Adam described the Attitude Era stable The Union in the video "10 Thing WWE Wants You to Forget About Shane McMahon" as "consisting of a mad boy, a big boy, an angry boy, and Test".
- During the "10 Things WWE Wants You to Forget About NXT" video in 2017, Blampied states that "NXT has produced some utter megastars in the last few years... and Mojo Rawley".
- The Mole: Turns out Sam never left Pacitti Club, and his turn to BX was fake.
- Older Than They Look: Jack is in his early 20s, but he looks like he's still in his teens. Adam and King Ross lampshaded this by referring to him as a 5 year old.
- Overly Long Gag:
- Adam's impression of Ric Flair's arm-slapping thing during How WWE should have booked the Diva's Revolution pt. 2. It even got a slow zoom-in as it went on and on.
- During How WWE Should Book The Brand Split - Part 1, Adam made a simile comparing WWE dividing the wrestlers between RAW and Smackdown to a gym teacher randomly splitting his class in two for sports, only to get massively
Sidetracked by the Analogy and descend into heavy Wangst. - During 10 Things WWE Want You to Forget About Goldberg, Adam's description of how bad the WrestleMania XX match between Goldberg and Brock Lesnar was evolves into the hypothetical history of a race of "plop mould people".
- Adam's Long List of nicknames for The Undertaker often veers into this.
- Adam's impression of Ric Flair's arm-slapping thing during How WWE should have booked the Diva's Revolution pt. 2
- Rhetorical Question Blunder:
- Done by Adam to himself in the "10 Things WWE Want You to Forget About the Big Show" video:
Adam: What's more enjoyable than seeing The Big Show humiliated? Well, scabies.- Did it again in "10 Most Heel Things John Cena Ever Did as a Babyface", this time not sarcastically:
Adam: ...but when you're thinking about the worst substance to land on you from a great height, what's worse than actual sh*t? I mean... bricks, I guess, but shut up. - Done by Adam to himself in the "10 Things WWE Want You to Forget About the Big Show"
- Running Gag: King Ross was the king of this, no pun intended:
- King Ross screaming "IT'S JOHN O'CLOCK, MOTHERF—ERS!!!!" when JBL made a mistake on commentary. It's became so popular that it's inspired a T-shirt.
- His quirky way of pronouncing certain words and names, e.g. Dabayu-Dabayu-Eeeee, BaRON Corbin, WTF moMONTS, etc.
- Parading around as a doomsday siren blares in the background. He did this whenever something highly unexpected happens on whatever show he's covering (e.g. JBL correcting Mauro Ranallo):King Ross: THE END IS NIGH, THE END IS NIGH, F*CKING RUN AWAY, THE END IS NIGH!
- Saying "TOMSPIRACY!!!" in falsetto, in reference to how Tom Phillips often had to stand bow-legged or sit to appear shorter than the wrestlers he's interviewing, when in reality he's taller than almost all of them.
- Whenever there's a prolonged segment involving some of the biggest men in the company, he'd splice in shots of Vince McMahon looking quite happy before falling out of his chair:
- In non-Ross running gags, when Adam did a top 10 and something alluded to something further on in the list, he'd say knowingly, "Oh, we'll get to that."
- In "10 Things WWE Want You to Forget About CM Punk", Adam came up with a different full name for CM Punk pretty much every time he said his name, such as
"Charles Montgomery Punk", "Chick Magnet Punk"note , "Cool Mint Punk" and "Chubby Monkey Punk" among others. - During "How WWE Should Book The Debut Of Balor Club" Adam went over the top throughout the video suggesting "random combat words" to be the title of the next NXT TakeOver event, such as TakeOver: Outnumbered, TakeOver: Fierce, TakeOver: Cardio, TakeOver: Domination, TakeOver: Flex, TakeOver: Ruuuuugh, TakeOver: Trouble, TakeOver: Scowl...
- Whenever they get a chance to mention the first ECW One Night Stand, they have to mention that JBL legit beat up The Blue Meanie in the middle of the ring.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: King Ross. Oftentimes, every other word of his got beeped out.
- Smug Snake: Adam, after Fastlane.
- Special Guest: Andrew got Nick "Eugene" Dinsmore to appear on a couple of occasions, with Nick treating Andrew like the Butt-Monkey he is.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: King Ross sometimes showed elements of this when reviewing the moments, including Triple H telling Seth Rollins "Good boy" when he sat down.
- Top Ten List: Follow this way for the playlist on the subject.
- Visual Pun: "10 WWE Stars Who Only Won Gold Because of the Brand Split" had #8, Orlando Jordan, whose entry in the list can be seen "with different angles" (one Angle per corner).
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Blampied and Pacitti started out this way.
- We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Blampied had a bit of a meltdown at the start of the "Top 10 Matches of 2016" as a result of being told he couldn't put Lesnar vs. Goldberg on the list because "it's a moment, not a match".
- Wham Episode: The revelation that they're producing their own wrestling promotion, WCPW.
- Wham Line:
- The new champion's first action:
Sam: I hereby forfeit this title to Adam Blampied.- King Ross made an announcement for Jack's last shot at Adam's title:
King Ross: This match will take place in Dallas, Texas.- Just as Adam celebrated his title win at Extreme Rules, a hooded figure showed up and cashed in...
Adam Pacitti: You love it.
The shows from the post-split era included examples of:
- Brief Accent Imitation: Whenever Simon mentions WCW, he often pronounces it as "dubyuh-see-dubyuh," saying it in the same Southern accent associated with its Atlanta roots — and its founder, Ted Turner.
- Cerebus Roller Coaster: Often Simon is the only positivity the channel provides, with other presenters providing at best mean-spirited humor, or being more overtly critical.
- Old Hero, New Pals: Simon Miller was the only major holdover from the previous era, and now does all of the channel's most popular videos, including the only continuing series, "Why?" and "Ups and Downs". Adam Clery was also retained and used more prominently.
