WWE HELL IN A CELL

Sacramento

NATALYA vs. LACEY EVANS (9:25): And so the greatest week in the history of wrestling has come to an end. Maybe not "greatest" but it certainly was a huge week. It all started with last Friday's Ring of Honor ppv where Rush beat Matt Taven for the title and afterwards Dragon Lee and Rush were fired from CMLL. There was also CMLL's biggest show of the year where Negro Casas lost his hair in a cage match (the show sucked btw). Then we had the big premiere of RAW which featured stars like Ric Flair and Hogan and a bunch of hot angles like Lesnar destroying Mysterio and his kid and Bobby Lashley making out with Rusev's wife Lana in front of him. Then on Wednesday we had a huge NXT episode that went head to head with the first ever episode of AEW's Dynamite on TNT. Adam Cole defended his NXT title against Matt Riddle in a great match and over on AEW Riho won the women's title and Jon Moxley gave Kenny Omega a DDT through a glass coffee table. Then it was the big Smackdown premiere on FOX on Friday. The Rock showed up to roast Baron Corbin, Kevin Owens retired Shane in a Ladder match, and Brock Lesnar beat Kofi Kingston for the title in five seconds then Cain Valasquez showed up to set up a Lesnar/Cain fight in Saudi Arabia. And now to end this insane week was the WWE ppv Hell in a Cell. Granted, that's more than seven days but you get the gist. It's been a crazy week. AEW also beat NXT in the ratings which was noteworthy. And this show ended with the fans booing. Literally it went off the air with everyone booing. Nice. This first match kind of sums up the WWE. They actually did a really good job this week with surprises and stories and good matches. Better than usual, anyway. But this show went off the rails after the Daniel Bryan match. And this show started off very poor with this awfully boring match. Lacey Evans sucks and Natalya is boring. What'd you expect? -No Stars-

BECKY LYNCH vs. SASHA BANKS "HELL IN A CELL" (21:50): Banks is back after being pissed off and wanting out of her contract. So what happened? She signed a new contract! Or is rumored to. I guess money talks or the WWE was just going to keep her sidelined forever so she was a trapped animal. Either way, she's been the WWE's most entertaining women's wrestler forever and she proved it here. This was the match of the night. They didn't do any high dives off the cage or anything, they just used canes and chairs and a table but it was brutal and wild and a hell of match. I suppose they couldn't have ended the show with this because all of the promotion has been about Bray Wyatt but still, this should've closed the show. Lynch kept her title when she submitted Banks. ***

DANIEL BRYAN & ROMAN REIGNS vs. ERICK ROWAN & LUKE HARPER (16:45): This was a wild brawl and very entertaining. Reigns ended up spearing Rowan through one of the announce tables which was cool. A lot of action and the crowd popped big for all of Reigns' spots and did the Yes! chant when Bryan wanted to hug Reigns at the end. Entertaining stuff. **1/2

RANDY ORTON vs. ALI (12:10): Ali lost and didn't look as good as he usually does against 205Live dudes. Ali is awesome, though, so it's kind of sad seeing him in a dull match like this. At least put him in there with someone he can work with doing the high flying style like Ricochet or Mysterio. 1/2*

ASUKA & KAIRI SANE vs. ALEXA BLISS & NIKKI CROSS (10:25): Ugh. Asuka and Kairi Sane's tag team name is The Kabuki Warriors. Isn't that racist? Maybe it's not but it sounds racist. It also sounds fucking stupid. Well they won the "coveted" women's tag team titles which have become a joke and, let's face it, were never really turned into anything worthwhile in their short existence so far. I'd have rather seen Sane vs. Asuka. 1/2*

THE VIKING RAIDERS & BRAUN STROWMAN vs. THE O.C. (8:15): Remember how entertaining The War Raiders were in New Japan and Ring of Honor only a year ago? Fuck me but they suck now. What happened? Even The O.C. (which...no, doesn't have anything to do with the great FOX teenage show from years ago) is pretty monotonous these days even though AJ was one of the best wrestlers in the world not too long ago. I'm still not entirely sure why Braun Strowman was in this match and teaming with The Viking Raiders. *

CHAD GABLE vs. KING CORBIN (12:40): There were a bunch of unannounced matches on this show because the WWE spent so much time hyping up Smackdown that they forgot they had a ppv. This was one of them. Or was it? There were four unannounced matches and I'm not even sure which ones they were. Baron Corbin beat Gable on RAW two weeks ago to win the King of the Ring. So this was their third match. Gable beat Corbin after Corbin won the KOTR so I guess this was a rubber match. I will admit that Corbin can be pretty funny when he does heel stuff on the mic but he's never been a good wrestler. Gable tried hard as usual but even he couldn't put together a quality match with Corbin. 1/2*

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. BAYLEY (10:15): Flair won the title in another yawn inducing match. I can see why the WWE's ratings have plummeted in the last year and a lot of people are dying for an alternative like AEW. Flair is a great wrestler. And Bayley had some great matches on NXT. So why is their title match so lame? Give me strength. 1/2*

SETH ROLLINS vs. THE FIEND "HELL IN A CELL" (17:30): I already noted that the show ended with the entire arena booing. I didn't mention that this match was held under red lights that were so stupid and awful looking that it boggles my mind that they decided to go with that bad idea. It looked terrible! And ridiculous! So if the regular lights were on we'd see that Bray Wyatt is just a dude in a clown mask and not scary? We kind of already know that, idiots. They really didn't do much of anything interesting in this match. Rollins finally put a ladder on Bray's head when Bray was lying on the mat and then Seth threw a tool box at the ladder. Okay. Then Seth got a sledgehammer and hit the ladder with it so the ref called for the bell. Yep, a no contest in a Hell in a Cell match. But Mick Foley falling off the top of the cage twice wasn't a no contest? Or Shane jumping off the top of the cell in two different matches wasn't a no contest? Or Dean Ambrose and Rollins falling off the side of the cell through the announce table wasn't a no contest? Or Rikishi falling off the top of the cell onto a truck filled with sawdust wasn't a no contest? Okay, that last one was super dumb and obviously didn't deserve to have a ref stoppage. So the ref stopping this was lame but I guess it was because they didn't want either guy to lose. The Fiend got up anyway and attacked Rollins after the ref stopped it so that was stupid. Someone online posted a shot of the crowd chanting, "Refund," after the match. Nice end to the show! -No Stars-