The mighty WWE continued their busy pay per view schedule with their yearly trip into Satan’s playground, Hell in a Cell, shown live in the early hours of this past Monday morning on Sky Box Office here in Britain.
The show began with the intriguing encounter between Christian and Sheamus.
Just after Christian made his entrance none other than fired stars the Miz and R-Truth made their way through the crowd, taking seats at ringside and brandishing tickets. This brought John Laurinatis out, who ordered security to escort them out of the building.
This was a pretty decent opener. Both guys put in good performance, and once again Christian came across as the whining little git, especially when he couldn’t put the big Irishman away.
As for Sheamus, well, I’ve been saying for ages how good he is after I saw him in Irish Whip Wrestling a few years back.
The end came when Christian, unable to put Sheamus away after two spears, was taken down with the brogue kick, with Sheamus taking the three count. Nice stuff.
Then it was onto the battle of the Sin Caras, who from this point forth shall be known by the colour they wore, Blue and Black. I’m guessing that Black is the bad guy.
I really enjoyed this match, and it was certainly better than the battle of the Undertakers and the battle of the Kanes a few years.
Apart from a couple of moments that will probably end up in the next edition of Botchamania both Black and Blue looked pretty good, especially when they took to the skies.
So at the end of the nearest thing you’ll get to an AAA or CMLL match in WWE Blue eventually came out on top when he took Black down with his modified power bomb. Nice work all round.
The first title match of the evening saw Air Boom, Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston, defending the Tag Team titles against Vickie Guerrero’s boys, United States Champion Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger.
Another match that fits nicely into the highly entertaining bracket. Bourne and Kingston continue to grow well as a team, pulling off some nice double team moves.
Ziggler and Swagger (should we call them Zigg Swag?) showed promise, especially when they were using Kingston as a punching bag, but it remains to be seen how good they’ll be, if they’re giving the chance.
The end was great as well, with Bourne countering Swagger’s top rope power bomb attempt with a hurricanrana into a pin. Nice work.
The first cell match saw Randy Orton challenging Mark Henry for the World title.
The slow and methodical approach was the order of the day in this one. Henry looked good as he threw Orton across the ring and into the cage, and for only the second time in 15 years he’s kind of impressed me.
Orton had a brief comeback, eventually taking Henry out with an RKO, but to the surprise of everyone the big guy kicked out of the ensuing pin.
Seconds later it was all over. As Orton went for his patented punt Henry countered with the world’s strongest slam for the winning pin.
That wasn’t enough for the champion though as he grabbed a steel chair from under the ring in an attempt to break Orton’s leg, but when Henry came off the top rope Orton managed to move out of the way before clobbering Henry with the chair, following the big man as he tried to run for cover . Henry managed to get one kick in before leaving Orton frustrated in the aisle.
We then got what we thought would be an in-ring promo from Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes, as he exchanged his current title belt for the classic version, claiming that he would defend the title feverishly, anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
It was then that John Laurinatis appeared, passing on a message from Triple H to the champion that he had to defend the title against John Morrison. Needless to say that the champion wasn’t too pleased with the situation, especially as he wasn’t dressed for battle.
This impromptu encounter turned out to be pretty decent. Morrison controlled the action early on as Rhodes struggled in his expensive Gucci shoes, but eventually the male Beautiful Person came back with some nice moves of his own, taking Morrison out with a roll up after Morrison missed his big kick.
Oh, and I’m guessing that Morrison’s lady friend hasn’t been doing anything rash lately, which is why Morrison got the title shot.
After the Miz and R-Truth made their way back into the building and attacked Air Boom it was on to the next title match as Beth Phoenix, accompanied by Natalya, challenged Kelly Kelly, accompanied by Eve Torres, for the Divas title.
No filler material this time around as the wrestlers tried to end the reign of the Barbie dolls. Beth put in her usual solid performance, dominating Kelly for the most part.
The champion, for her part, looked okay, although there were a couple of moves that looked a little messy.
We also had the obligatory fight at ringside between Natalya and Eve, with Natalya clobbering Kelly with the microphone while the referee’s back was turned, before Beth sealed the win with her glam slam, ending the reign of the Barbie girls, hopefully.
The second cell match saw Alberto Del Rio and C.M. Punk challenging John Cena for the WWE title.
They certainly save the best, and most dramatic, match for last with this show.
It took a while to get going, thanks to Del Rio’s stalling tactics, but it quickly developed into a hell of an encounter with three tremendous performances.
All three men made good use of the cell as well as various other weapons, coming out with their big moves, only to have their various pins broken up by the odd man in the ring.
The drama quotient was added to when Del Rio’s announcer Ricardo Rodriguez knocked out the outside referee, stealing the key and getting into the cell with a metal pipe in an attempt to stop his employer getting pinned. Cena took him out with the attitude adjuster out of the cage, only for Del Rio to hit him with the pipe and throw him out of the cage, locking him out of the cage and throwing the key under the ring.
This made it a one on one encounter between Del Rio and Punk, and both men came close to getting the win. Then the Mexican star used the pipe to clobber Punk as he went for the GTS, giving him the title winning pin seconds later.
Then it happened. As the cell was being raised two hooded men rushed in and attacked those inside. The cell was soon lowered again, and the hoodies were quickly revealed as the Miz and R-Truth as they attacked everyone, wrestlers, referees, cameramen, everyone as the entire locker room tried to get into the cage.
Eventually a pair of bolt cutters was found, with the assailants finally giving up as the police entered the cage. But one man was really annoyed with the situation as Triple H barged through six policemen and attacked Miz and Truth before being dragged away by two burly security men as the show went off the air.
In conclusion - as the old saying goes this was another quality outing from the mighty WWE. It began with an entertaining opener and built up nicely right up to the three way cell match, with the added bonus of the drama created by the unscheduled return of the sacked Miz and Truth as they made their mark in the most chaotic of ways.
So it’s for these reasons that Hell in a Cell gets the thumbs up from this writer, and if you haven’t seen it yet you may want to check out the repeat showings if you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment