Looks like I pretty much got everything I had been wishing for before Hell in a Cell…everything except for something meaningful for Dolph to do, but it’s not like we live in a perfect world or anything.
The Kick-Off Show
Damien Sandow vs Kofi Kingston
Had I not be aware of the card beforehand, there really would be nothing odd about this match being on a kickoff. Everything about this match screams “typical kickoff match.” Of course, I would rather see Big E but I was happy to see that he basically got an upgrade in both card status and opponents. But more on that later.
Sandow and Kofi did what they needed to do. No more, no less.
Triple Threat Tag Team Championship Match
Codust(c) vs The Shield vs The Usos
What a way to start off the actual show? I still find myself drooling over the superplex onto the floor. If there ever was a six man tag team championship, I’d give it to these gentlemen to hold until the end of days. Also, I’m not sure if Cody could deliver that type of crossroads only to Rollins but he should do that a lot more. Also, I’d say Usos are quite deserving of the belts, they just have the unfortunate luck of hitting their stride when we have powerhouses like Shield and CoDust (which makes you wonder why they didn’t get the belts back when we only had the Colons, Hunicho and Camacho and all the other racially segregated tag teams).
Fandango & Summer Rae vs The Great Khali & Natalya
The only highlight in this match for me was that I finally got to see what Summer Rae could do in the ring because I always heard positive things about her and I shamefully don’t watch nearly as much NXT as I should. That being said, I really didn’t get to see all that much. What I did see were a bunch of what I didn’t want to see (Khali).
United States Championship Match
Dean Ambrose(c) vs Big E Langston
Like I said earlier, huge upgrade for Langston both in card status and quality of opponent. Sure, the incident that led to both participants needing stitches seemed like a pretty dumb botch on Big E’s part but I did enjoy the spear onto the floor, so that kinda made up for it. I’m sort of hoping this means Big E will now get a feud with Dean because that’ll be a lot more useful than one with Axel.
Handicap Hell in a Cell Match
CM Punk vs Ryback & Paul Heyman
It a shame we felt a bit burnt out on this feud by the time we got to this match because that Paul Heyman promo before the match was pretty damn epic and should’ve made this match seem a lot more important than it. Now, is that because of Rybacks shortcomings in the ring? Possibly. I really think time was the biggest enemy of this feud, Both in the since that it lasted a tad too long and that it continued for so long after it already reached it’s peak back at Summerslam. But I liked the ending, Punk put Paul away finally which will put all of this to bed seeing as how Punk really didn’t care about any of the Heyman guys. Of course, Paul will stay out of the picture until he returns with Brock, hopefully for a rematch with Punk. However, this gives Punk some time spent focused on other opponents which is exactly what I wished for.
Los Matadores vs The Real Americans
3/4 of this match was pretty good as predicted. Both gimmicks still hurt me on the inside.
World Heavyweight Championship Match
Alberto Del Rio(c) vs John Cena
What else were you expecting? I’m not gonna completely bash on Cena because I’m just tired of doing and I’m sure you’re tired of seeing it but nothing about this match really surprised me. Again, it’s the WHC so I’m not really all that upset about it but it still doesn’t mean I’m happy.
Divas Championship Match
AJ(c) vs Brie Bella
Another incredibly solid outing by both of these ladies and color me impressed by Brie’s improvements. Seriously, we’ve all seen bad Divas matches and good Divas matches and I fully believe we’re seeing the latter in this rivalry. I gotta agree with my boy Jeff Heatherly, if you can’t find something good about this match, then you need to get your eyes checked. Is it perfect? Not even close but it’s heads and shoulders above most Divas matches.
WWE Championship Hell in a Cell Match
Daniel Bryan vs Randy Orton (w/ Shawn Michaels as ref)
For a brief second before this match, I actually believed that maybe Shawn would come to the aid of Daniel Bryan after HHH did some shady business to hinder DB. However, the ending we got was logical and consistent with Shawn’s earlier tendencies in all things regarding HHH. It was horribly predictable but it is what it is and at least the final bell actually rung and that alone makes Hell in a Cell an improvement over Battleground.
An Unnumbered Amount of Thoughts on Raw
It was quite dumb for Sandow to have cash in the briefcase but it was even dumber to cut to commercial before they even ring the bell. Once again, be careful what you wish for because I have been wishing for Sandow to finally show me something in the ring that’ll justify me being a fan of his. He finally did, but he did so when he lost his MitB chance on Cena. Maybe Sandow suffers from the same thing as Cena in the sense that he only has good matches against certain people.
The Kane situation on Raw thoroughly interests me and the shot of Kane handing over his mask was brilliant. Kane being Stephanie’s avatar makes a ton of sense.
I’m under the belief that this Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and Wyatt Family thing may lead to a traditional Survivor Series match. We can easily add Miz to Punk and Bryan’s team and anyone else that the Wyatt’s have attacked in the past. The only question is, who would join the Wyatts for their team?
Once again, I get what I wished for. Punk is moving on to someone else, the Wyatts get to do something that’s actually meaningful and Bryan moves on before his Authority story got too stale.
Also, I’m working my way through the “campaign” of WWE2k14. I’ll give my full review later but so far it’s as I expected. Graphics are still horrid but the gameplay is a lot of fun. (The first thing Joel did on the game was make a custom Sheamus championship belt…somewhere, Pat is touching himself/herself while PUSSBOT3000 watches).
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris
The Answer: I’ve reached 10k tweets. For my next trick, I shall make a social life magically appear!
