This ended up being a quality card: why was half of it unannounced?
0. Natalya vs. Lacey Evans
Being that there were three, maybe four matches announced for this show to begin with, this ended up being the sole Kickoff match. I liked it. Their RAW TV matches haven’t been much, but this was real mat-based and had a lot of bitchiness to it. The crowd was popping for mat takedowns, and Evans got a better showcase than she usually gets before Natalya weirdly tapped her out clean. ***1/4
1. Hell in a Cell – RAW Women’s Title: Becky Lynch [c] vs. Sasha Banks
All hail Sasha Banks, the absolute maestro of Hell in a Cell matches, the ONLY bad motherfucker on the roster willing to embrace the absolute violence of the CELL. The red cell visual remains lame, but this was VICIOUS: Sasha starts with an elbow right away, throws Becky into the cell on the outside, Becky kicks the cell door into Sasha, Becky rubs Sasha’s face into the cell, Sasha slams the cell door on Becky’s arm repeatedly. VICIOUS!!!
Sasha bumped like a nut into the cell any chance she got too. At some point it kind of felt like it was being extended because they have to put on A Show or something, and I would’ve preferred more to-the-point violence, but they eventually got it back on track and the Sasha dropkick into Becky sitting on a chair on top of kendo sticks wedged into the cage was some SHIT. Loved Sasha pulling on the chair and hair during the Disarmer before eventually tapping too. I mean Becky rules, but SASHA BANKS. MY GOD. The Hell in a Cell is her yard. ****1/2
2. Tornado Tag Team Match: Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan vs. Luke Harper & Erick Rowan
I loved this, but what I really want to say right off the bat is that Erick Rowan is good. He isn’t overtly good, he isn’t obviously good, but he is good. He’s good enough, he’s safe enough, and gosh darn it – people like him. And he fit right into this awesome wild match. The Tornado Tag gimmick really helped the chaos, and I liked Harper and Rowan still using their old Bludgeon Brothers logic of isolating their opponents and hurting them on the floor with whatever is around. Bryan popped in with fired-up babyface stuff, Roman popped in with Superman punches, otherwise for a long time this was Luke and Erick dishing punishment and it was pretty great.
The finish was madness with Bryan hurricanrana’ing Harper off the commentary table to setup a Reigns spear on Rowan through the table, then Bryan taking two nasty half-nelson suplexes from Harper (as if that wasn’t what re-injured him last time) before landing on his feet on the third and ducking Harper’s spinning lariat to setup a Superman punch from Reigns, followed by a Knee+ from Bryan and a spear from Reigns. This was a really fun gimmick brawl for a while, but that finish setup is all-timer stuff. ****1/4
Bryan hugging it out with Reigns post-match was amazing. That’s how you get over a babyface, baby.
3. Mustafa Ali vs. Randy Orton
It would’ve been nice if there was a feud here and I didn’t quite buy Ali working armbars on Orton, but I thought the rest of this was tremendous. It was a simple tale told by two masters of their respective roles – Orton waves his dick around and bores you while reminding you every few minutes how casually good he is, while Ali brings the nutcase bumps and evokes a sympathy like not many can. There was also a great bit where Ali fired up with chops and Orton subtly responded with an eye rake. I thought they did a great job of teasing the RKO at the finish too, with Ali actively getting the better of Orton for a while. The handspring RKO counter was heart-stopping amazing, even if it led to a sudden one moments later. ****
4. WWE Women’s Tag Team Title: Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross [c] vs. The Kabuki Warriors
There was so much that was off-putting going into this: the sudden setup, the lazy mixed Asuka/Kairi theme, the Kabuki Warriors name. And I’m not sure if anybody remembered to tell the audience that The Kabuki Warriors were heels, but watching Kairi working out how to be one on live TV was something else. Asuka, of course, was a natural. And slowly but surely they found their groove and built some incredible anticipation for the Nikki Cross hot tag. Kairi marching into an eye poke on her was incredible, and I loved Asuka milking the reaction to the Kawada kicks. Cross for her part was a champion apron worker too. And by the end of this I was loving it. The hot tag was great, the Insane Elbow into Nikki’s knees was nasty, and it led to a great last-second save by Asuka. The POISON GREEN MIST from Asuka for the finish had me rolling over too, and puts this over the top. ***3/4
5. Braun Strowman & The Viking Raiders vs. AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson
Just a fun WWE 6-man – that’s all I got. PPV Viking Raiders were awesome. The DQ finish was a bummer, necessary because they didn’t want Braun to pin AJ but they also wanted Braun to be able to knock out AJ (because Braun is suddenly a KO artist now that he is feuding with Tyson Fury) and give AJ the chance to act all KO’d as he walked to the back. I’m glad we got that last part. ***1/4
TAMINA is the 24/7 Champion? I thought Tyler Breeze was Brad Maddox for a second. That WAS Tyler Breeze, right? The 24/7 Title is weird.
6. Chad Gable vs. King Corbin
Jesus flippin’ Christmas they did it again, another great match by this tremendous pairing of wrestlers. Gable was wrestling like a man with a plan early on, which you really don’t see very often in WWE. He was staying on Corbin like his life depended on it until he took a completely insane shoulder bump into the bottom corner post, which though I’ve written quite a bit about these two these last few weeks is something completely new. The show was good up until this point, but it’s still a testament to these two (and maybe the King of the Ring booking) how amped the crowd was for this match considering how potentially cold it was. Loved the Corbin powerbomb, the moonsault near fall, and eventually Gable’s triumph. The Shorty stuff is terrible, the wrestling is great. ****1/4
7. SmackDown Women’s Title: Bayley [c] vs. Charlotte Flair
These two unfortunately got the slot in the show where I’m not sure I was completely invested in things, but I won’t argue that they didn’t go hard for what was another match unannounced. Heel Bayley is something special too – she dragged Charlotte to the floor at one point and just had this look of satisfaction on her face, like if Abby from Broad City had stumbled onto a get-rich-quick scheme. I liked how they played with Charlotte’s big boot too – Bayley avoided it like death and it meant something when it was hit. There was some leg work in there by both too. The Natural Selection rope grab near fall didn’t quite work, and Charlotte as 10x champ doesn’t quite do it for me, but for a 10-minute match this was pretty great stuff. ***1/2
8. Hell in a Cell – WWE Universal Title: Seth Rollins [c] vs. The Fiend
Here’s the benefit of not watching this connected to any form of Internet: I liked it. Or, at least in the delirium of late night wrestling watching, I enjoyed myself. I’m not going to argue that the confounding dumbasses in charge of WWE didn’t paint themselves into a corner by booking this match in the first place – the obvious play if Fiend is challenging for the Universal Title is to have Fiend dominate and win, and he didn’t. And that sucks. It was just like Ryback vs. Punk way back when – the long game was Punk keeping the title, but there was something brewing in between that that shouldn’t have been derailed.
The finish here wasn’t Brad Maddox (TWO Brad Maddox references in one post!?) though, it was the WWE Universal Champ literally trying to kill The Fiend, who as far as I’m concerned is a creepy and threatening enough guy to the point where YEAH – if he’s kicking out at one for your stupid curb stomp finish, or ten of them, and he is trying to do bad things to you (including at one point trying to snap your neck), maybe what you have to do is end the sonofabitch.
The crowd booed the repetitive curb stomps like Rollins was move spamming in SmackDown vs. RAW 2011, but that they were all for a ONE COUNT on The Fiend is I think kind of… awesome? This is a monster, people! A MONSTER. The blue balls apparent DQ finish sucked too – it’s not on either guy that they were booked into a corner, but Seth Rollins definitely is not the ideal babyface to come out champion of this stupid scenario.
Regardless, he definitely did try to sledgehammer The Fiend’s head into mush at the end and I know there’s been some STUFF done in Hell in a Cell’s but maybe that was the correct time to stop the match.
I hear too much about wrestling needing to be more cinematic to justify the weird outrage I’m hearing from all levels of the business over this match. It wasn’t a classic or the perfect example of that ask, but it was unique, eerie, and finish aside exactly how you use The Fiend in a big match: Rollins went right at him and did his shtick around a pretty amazing Wyatt performance where he stalked around and strategically hit his marks. All his no-sells were legit holy shit moments, from the early kendo stick walk-through to the table frog splash no-sell to all the kickouts at one. Again – THIS IS A MONSTER. He did a NECK SNAP as a wrestling maneuver.
Fiend just shouldn’t have gotten up afterwards. I dug everything else beyond that. Show a close-up of his eye open at the end or something. Go full movie.
Otherwise, Seth Rollins tried to murder The Fiend to beat him. And the ref stopped the match. Isn’t that crazy? ISN’T THAT AWESOME? HOW GOOD WAS BRAY WYATT IN THIS MATCH? WHY IS EVERYBODY MAD ABOUT THE FINISH AND NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT? It takes a special kind of guy to go all Freddy Krueger but also catch a tope with a Sister Abigail into the steel cage.
This wasn’t art, it was just dumb and fun as hell. It was sports entertainment. ****
In a world of too much content, WWE goes a tight three hours and fifteen minutes. Bless. The card was great too. Whatever anyone thinks of the ending, this show was filled with top-to-bottom quality wrestling. Becky/Sasha’s a classic too. 10/10
