Hell in a Cell McReview

Since announcing the return of the DOI, under this new format and goals, I’ve been inundated with requests to do some wrestling stuff. The last indy show I’ve watched was my own, and that was over 2 1/2 years ago already. Therefore, I can’t comment on anything indy related, outside that I know that crowds are dwindling & fans rather download shows than pay for them. However, I did get a chance to watch the Hell in a Cell WWE 9.99-for-view event last night, so for the readers who were with me in my wrestling days, bust out your Heinekens, grab a seat, and here we go:

I’m going to assume you all watched the show and because I’m posting this 12 hours after the show ended, already know what happened. I’m not going to give you play-by-play, go to a real wrestling website for that kind of crap.

I caught some of the opening panel that they do a half-hour before the show. Renee Young is perfect in her role and you know she’s destined for bigger things, whether it’s with ESPN, the NFL Network or NCAA Football. She has too much talent and is too good at her job to be wasting away in WWE.

Booker T. sets back the African-American race another year every time he opens his mouth. He’s the WWE’s Shannon Sharpe. The mumbo-jumbo that comes out of his mouth, like shucky-ducky just makes you frown.

Remember when Alex Riley was a wrestler?

I’ll say this now and get it out of the way, the WWE does amazing video packages to promote feuds. I just don’t get why they only air on the show you paid to see. I already know why I’m watching the show and what’s on it. I don’t need video packages for every match to be reminded why. That Cena-Orton video package was amazing, but would’ve been better on Raw to promote the PPV, not used on the PPV to promote something I’m about to see right after the video package airs.

The Rollins/Ambrose video package was way too long and when the show was over, completely meaningless.

For the WWE Intercontinental Title

Dolph Ziggler is one of those guys that every booker loves. As a booker, you only have to think about him for 2 seconds and can move on to more important things. You just book him in a match and you know you will kill time off your card & get a good match out of him. Until Ziggler gets promo time or can show he can even cut a promo that people can care about, he will just have the “good hand” label on him for the rest of his career. He will never be a money guy until he’s given a chance to sink or swim on the mic.

I was wondering if Cesaro would be punished due to comments he made earlier in the week about being sick of seeing Orton/Cena for the millionith time. WWE has done two straight falls before in 2/3 falls matches, but this was a match that should’ve used all three falls.

I don’t think this match was great. The way it was booked, it didn’t have a chance to be. Both guys worked really hard, but this was just a Raw match that took place on a Sunday. I wonder what WWE will do with Cesaro from here. This is a guy who can talk, can wrestle, has a great gimmick, is unique and does everything different. WWE seems content with leaving him as a superior job guy. What a shame. Remember how much momentum he had after Wrestlemania?

Ziggler wins this in an impressive fashion & I thought the ending sequence was flawless. I was surprised that Ziggler won two straight and was kinda thinking Cesaro would kick out, but it wasn’t meant to be.

A fine opener, but if you saw this show live, you probably already forgot about this match.

Loser Has To Be A Servant For the Winner For 30 Days

Nikki Bella d. Brie Bella

They’ve killed the heat on this story many times, which is odd, based on how much time they’ve dedicated to it. Nikki wins clean which defeats the whole purpose of this program. Brie is the worst babyface ever. Why should anyone care about this program moving forward, considering the heel cleanly beat the face? There’s not even motive for revenge. WWE fucked this whole program up from the day Nikki turned. I’m not wasting any more time on this match because WWE didn’t give any time to logically think it out either.

Also, just want to mention, why is BRIE MODE considered a great thing when Brie goes on offense? On the fake Total Divas show, Brie Mode means Brie is shit-faced drunk and makes bad decisions. WWE can’t do blood during steel cage matches promoted as “HELL” but can talk about a horrible babyface acting like The Sandman? I guess the writers are in Brie Mode too.

For the WWE Tag Team Championships

If you’ve seen one Uso match, you’ve seen them all. They are great workers but have no individual personalities. They fly around, do cool spots and work hard, but no match is different than another.

One thing that drives me nuts about the Usos and Ziggler is that they both hit 384538835454 superkicks a match. Go watch a fucking Shawn Michaels match you indy geeks. A superkick should be a finisher. If you want to play around with the Young Bucks, ask for your release and play Superkick Saturday’s in front of 200 people.

The heels also win this match clean, so where the Usos go from here I don’t know. Probably doing the same match they have every night.

I like the Goldust/Stardust stuff, but it feels they peaked already. They got the championships, so now what?

Heck in a Cell

Winner Becomes #1 Contender to the WWE Championship & Gets His Match Whenever Brock Feels He Needs a Payday

John Cena d. Randy Orton

As I said before, I thought the video package for this match was very well done, but should’ve been done on Raw. Despite the package, it is kinda hard to compare Cena vs Orton to Hogan/Andre, Bret/Shawn, or Austin/Rock. Cena/Orton, despite having a 3848384383 matches aren’t even each other’s top rival. Cena had better programs with Edge, Angle, Punk, Batista, HHH, Shawn, Jericho, Rock, etc while Orton had bigger programs with HHH, Shawn, Taker, Misterio, Hogan, etc. Orton and Cena just wrestled each other alot. I get what they were going for, but it just didn’t stick.

I thought this was the worst and most predictable HIAC match since the Punk/Ryback one. It wasn’t bad, I just seen it before and with the restrictions of not being in the main event and no blood, you didn’t even know the cage was there.

I get the whole idea of making new stars and all, but this should’ve went on last. Cena is the only full-time draw in professional wrestling today. With the finish at the end of the show, you’re not making a star, you’re only hurting what you had, so why diminish Cena at all?

John Cena, in my opinion, is the greatest wrestler of all time. He’s had the longest run. He’s had to deal with being hand-cuffed his entire career. He does the Make-A-Wish stuff. He has dedicated himself to this. He doesn’t have bad matches. He always delivers. He is the essential company man. Who knows how long he has left before his body betrays him? I would keep running with him until he says he can’t go no more. Nobody else can move merch, get ratings, get house show attendance up or speak publicly like he can.

Cena wins with an AA off the top rope through a table. Presumably, Orton goes to Rollins while WWE backs a truck of money up at Brock’s door. But Cena needs to beat Brock, which I don’t see happening as everyone knows it’s Brock vs Reigns at Mania. I don’t even agree with that. Reigns can’t cut a promo or not given the chance to, and to sell Mania, you gotta be able to talk.

And how about that Brock Lesnar? He can just do whatever he wants, even if it means directly depositing cum into Vince’s asshole, and he can still make his own schedule and get paid whatever he wants. I’m sure the full-time guys on the road who have to pay their own trans/hotel every night love that.

I also enjoyed that this HELL IN A CELL, where careers go to die and bones are broken and all that rhetoric was hosted in a ring with pink ring ropes. Even better, Cena was smiling, high-fiving fans, giving out his merchandise to cancer kids and posing without an ounce of pain after the match. WHAT HELL HE WENT THROUGH!

I can’t wait for this Susan B. Komen shit to be over with. WWE only donates 5% of sales anyway and spends 30 days shoving this shit down your throat. It comes off fake and insincere. In real life, Cena doesn’t want any attention to his Make-a-Wish stuff, and in the same vein, WWE should do that with Susan Komen. And what about the other cancers? Is prostate cancer not good enough for WWE? Is pancreatic cancer not marketable enough? I guess brown ribbons for colon cancer wouldn’t be to the WWE’s liking? They are so transparent, it’s a parody of themselves at this point.

For the meaningless WWE US Championship

Who cares? Title means shit. Sheamus will never be over. Miz will never be where he once was & the one saving grace is a future mid-card face run for Damian Mizdow, where he will never get past Santino level. Sorry, I got not faith with the writers here and Mizdow has been beaten like a drum so much it’s hard to forget that. Sheamus wins with his silly kick.

Rusev w/Lana d. The Big Show

Just don’t care. Let’s fast forward 18 months from now where Rusev is a babyface tagging with Santino. These nationality heel gimmicks don’t have long-term staying power ever. Even in the territory days, you would do your run and move on. We’ve seen this gimmick a million times before. Plus if WWE is PG and wants the little kid audience, do they think any kid cares about Russia? WWE needs a Chinese heel who waxes everyone in Call of Duty by spawning and cheating. That will get the WWE PG generation riled up about a heel doing a nationality gimmick.

Rusev wins with the camel clutch. The announcers said Show tapped, but it looked like he passed out to me. The commentating was all over the place, but the biggest blunder was saved for the main event.

Mark Henry was also there for this, but didn’t do anything but sweat profusely & fart. Just time filler. Let’s have Cena beat Rusev already and move on. Lana is also too good looking to be wasted as a heel. Her best days are yet to come for the company, as a female babyface. Any predictions on how long Rusev/Lana last as a real life couple once their inevitable Mero/Sable split?

For the WWE Diva’s Championship

Diva’s Championship is such a dumb name. I wish they would go back to the womens championship.

This match got time and was good, but it went on too late and at this point, the fans in the building knew this was cutting into time for the main event. I think this match was going too long as AJ quickly won with her submission out of nowhere. Paige didn’t even tease tapping out and tapped out right away.

I also gotta wonder, does WWE offer dental with everything else they offer? Someone needs to fix Paige’s horrendous English teeth. It’s time for this AJ/Paige stuff to end. It’s amazing where AJ is in life these days. Marrying CM Punk was the best thing to ever happen to her – they can’t subject her to more bad storylines on Total Divas!

Speaking of Total Divas, is Nattie Neidhart supposed to be the most annoying character on TV since Mickey Doyle’s death on Boardwalk Empire? I think I hate her more than the Nazi’s on Breaking Bad. What a malignant cunt. I’m sure this is all for the cameras, but she is not likeable at all and I hope her character on Total Divas gets ebol-aids.

I also like how the focus on Trinity has gone down alot because she is the most level-headed one of them all. I’d like to see Trinity and AJ get a program.

Hell in a Pink Ring Roped Cell

Seth Rollins d. Dean Ambrose via sports entertainment finish

Well this sucked. The match started on top of the cage, where promptly JBL implied that this was the first time that’s ever happened in HIAC history. For someone who proclaims he watches the WWE network all the time, JBL perhaps should watch the most famous HIAC match between Taker/Foley again. Stuff like that shouldn’t be allowed to happen in the number 1 wrestling company in the world. Lawler or Cole should’ve heeled him out right there.

This was a stunt and comedy match, which really took away from it. These guys were having what they used to call a “blood-feud” back when wrestling was wrestling, but then they did all this hokey comedy shit to build this up. The comedy hurt. The match itself started off as comedy. There are times for comedy in wrestling and time for real shit. Do you think HHH, when he was booking his own programs from 2002 until the DX run would’ve ever done this shit? Then why does he allow this shit to happen here?

Eventually the match got serious, but was ruined with the Sabu lights off finish. Bray Wyatt attacks Dean and Rollins wins. So now the WWE Universe is now trained to expect a run-in by a new heel whenever it’s time to blow-off a feud. Terrible, terrible, terrible finish. With Reigns & Bryan hurt, WWE needs new babyfaces. Ambrose should’ve won clean here. A loss doesn’t hurt Rollins at all. Especially at a time where you need new stars & you have a champion who wrestles 3 times a decade, WWE needs to give their fans something to go home happy about.

Even if WWE had to do this Bray Wyatt shit, you could’ve had Ambrose win, then send in Wyatt to start their program. I’m also not a fan of Bray Wyatt because I’ve watched everything where he stole his shit from, from Justified to Deliverance. He is not original. I’ve seen his character done before on bigger stages and done better. At the end of the day, Bray Wyatt is a fat guy with bad tattoos in a Hawaiian shirt. Oooooh, how mystical. Get lost.

Final McWord:

Horrible show and I would expect more of this crap. We are in a new era, the $9.99 era. Once they get your 10 bucks, they have no incentives to do anything big on PPV. They already have your money and do not have to worry about buyrates or pleasing current fans. For example, if all the old school fans get the network for the nostalgia, how does WWE know if they are pleasing their current audience? Let’s just fast forward a year when this whole network bombs and we can laugh about WWE trying to get $50 a PPV, especially after JBL and Cole are telling everyone if you spend $50 for this shit today, you’re a cocksucking asshole.

At the end of the day, I have no interest in Raw tomorrow and will be watching the New York Rangers. LGR!!!!

I hope you enjoyed my return to wrestling writing. This week, I will have columns up about my trip to see the Rangers play the Canadiens in Montreal, a few LOLs at the Jets and more.

Thanks for checking out DOINow.com

Sean McCaffrey

BULLSMC@aol.com