The Usos and New Day have a great match.
Baron Corbin, AJ Styles and Tye Dillinger have a great match.
And Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon had a great twist.
Wait a second…
did WWE just put on an excellent show?
I’m Oli Davis and I’m choosing to forget Jinder Mahal vs Shinsuke Nakamura.
This is Hell in a Cell 2017… in about 4 minutes.
Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable beat Hype Bros American Beta beat the Hype Bros in the Hell
in a Cell pre-show match.
A match so pre-show, the hard cam didn’t seem to be ready, with all the establishing
shots coming from through the middle rope.
The Usos beat The New Day The main card opened with The Usos vs The
New Day.
Surprisingly, Xavier Woods joined Big E inside the cage instead of Kofi Kingston.
Which isn’t the safest gimmick match to return from injury for.
Both teams pushed the boundaries of a PG product, ingeniously making spots feel far more brutal
than they actually were.
The match’s real brilliance, though, was in the players’ emotion and story.
The Usos ganging up on isolated New Day members, Kofi distraught on the outside, and - by far
the best - Big E entering Rage Mode (trademark Alex Riley).
Funny can draw money when you drop the comedy, revealing a serious badass underneath.
Despite Woods breaking up an excellent near fall - still in handcuffs - The Usos hit their
double splash on him with a chair to regain the tag team championships.
Randy Orton beat Rusev Rusev took a lot of his match against Randy
Orton, which is sadly the newest form of WWE 50/50 booking: give one guy the majority of
the offence to ‘protect’ him when he gets beat by a few moves at the end.
Baron Corbin beat AJ Styles & Tye Dillinger Tye Dillinger was added to the AJ Styles/Baron
Corbin US title match during the pre-show.
Which would’ve been much better if done on Tuesday’s episode of Smackdown, but it
still ended up being a masterstroke - as this not only turned out to be a terrific three-way,
it also gave Corbin someone other than AJ to pin.
Who would’ve thought it.
US title matches work a lot better without massive adbreaks in the middle.
Charlotte beat Natalya (DQ) Natalya worked over Charlotte’s left leg
for the majority of their Women’s Championship match, setting up a SharpShooter finish that
never came.
She went for the steel chair DQ instead.
Which is totally fine.
This is obviously the start of a feud, not the climactic final encounter, so this was
an effective way to further the two’s rivalry.
Fashion Files: Back To Basics Breezeango are so good with their Fashion
Files act, I don’t actually mind being trolled by them.
They had just the right amount of self-aware when moving on from the 2B mystery, which
they supposedly solved during their four week hiatus.
There are many things no-one could’ve predicted about the success of Fashion Files.
The Ascension getting over as sympathetic babyfaces being chief amongst them.
Jinder Mahal beat Shinsuke Nakamura Smackdown’s top championship feud, with
one of wrestling’s most charismatic performers, and… this was just a match.
It’s like a Production Runner got the US and WWE title scripts the wrong way round
in the company printer.
Shinsuke Nakamura’s visible pin was thwarted by the Singh Brothers, so Jinder retained
dirty yet again.
Bobby Roode beat Dolph Ziggler The pay-per-view sag continued into Bobby
Roode vs Dolph Ziggler - a match that had rave reviews from the house show circuit,
but was never given a chance to get over here, being put in the ‘main event buffer’ slot
for the night.
Ziggler’s big entrance was… no entrance.
He didn’t have any music or a Titantron video.
Just like the Natalya/Charlotte feud, the dirty finish and post-match attack was the
opening chapter in the feud’s larger story.
Kevin Owens beat Shane McMahon Thankfully, the main event more than made
up for the show’s lacklustre previous hour with spectacle, shocks and Kevin Owens cosplaying
as Seth Rollins.
The first half of the match took place inside the cage, with a Shooting Star Press, KO cannonball
off the apron and through a table, and a Coast-to-Coast on a trashcan - after which the referee incorrectly
called a rope break.
Hey, I didn’t know it was a ‘Fools Count Anywhere’ match.
Thankyou.
The second half was far more emotionally investing, mainly because I was genuinely scared someone
was going to die.
Shane and Owens fought seemingly forever on top of the cage, hitting backdrops, suplexes
and Pop-Up Powerbombs on the thankfully stable panels.
My heart jumped with every bump, and it was a very effective use of spectacle tension.
The most memorable part, though, was the finish - Shane recreating his top of the cage elbow
spot from Wrestlemania 32, for Sami Zayn to drag Owens out of his way!
Sami’s performance was just as good as anything KO has done in recent weeks - acting both
conflicted and angry at the same time.
And, interestingly, Kevin didn’t appear to be in on the plan.
It was a shocking twist, a genuine cliffhanger, and, most importantly, puts Sami in a main
event storyline!
So that was Hell in a Cell 2017 in about 4 minutes, here’s Smackdown’s ratings recap
from top to bottom: SmackDamn, Smacktastic, Smack Bang In The Middle, Ellsworthy and Worst
Rusev Day Ever.
I’ll reveal my score very shortly, but first, vote in the poll above my head to give it
your own rating.
I’ll announce the results in tomorrow’s WrestleTalk News.
Raw’s recent No Mercy show had a fantastic first half, but a very lacklustre second.
After Jinder vs Nakamura and Ziggler vs Roode, it seemed Hell in a Cell was on a similar
path.
But a spectacle of a main event and a very intriguing Sami heel turn made this one of
my favourite WWE PPVs of the year - the other highlights being The Usos vs New Day, the
US title three-way and Fashion Files comedy.
For the first time I’ve been doing these reviews, I’m giving a WWE PPV the top rating.
Hell in a Cell 2017, for me, is SmackDamn.
But what about the Undertaker Wrestlemania match that never happened?
And let’s remember five times wrestlers hit fans.
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I’ve been Oli Davis and that was wrestling.