Well, Sunday has come and gone, and it’s time for the recap. Hell In A Cell 2022…the hits and misses are here!
I have to be honest…once SmackDown was done, I had a feeling Hell In A Cell’s hits and misses were going to be a lot more misses than hits.
Thinking about it logically, that’s not an unfair assumption. Coming into the show, we knew right off the bat that a number of Superstars were not scheduled.
There was no Roman Reigns, no unified title defense. Also, no unified tag title defense, as that match happened Friday.
As if that wasn’t enough…no SmackDown Women’s Championship on the line-the number one contender was only just decided.
No women’s tag match either, for obvious reasons.
So, Hell’s hits and misses are looking pretty bad, right?
At least ahead of the opening bell, it was not looking great. And then, if the card wasn’t troubling or disappointing enough, things got thrown for a loop with the Cody Rhodes injury news.
So, rather than drag this out much more, let’s get into it.
This time around, I feel like doing Hell’s misses first.
First up?
I knocked it in the intro, I will knock it again here and now.
WWE now calls these “premium live events”. If I had paid for this, especially like, paid for a ticket?
Going to the event would have been a really tough sell. Only thing harder would have probably been selling the tickets and not taking a loss.
Seriously, how is this premium if the only titles on the line are the RAW Women’s Championship and the United States Championship?
This is one drawback to unifying a couple title categories. If you give those champs the night off, you have no alternative.
Add to that that we won’t see Gunther win the IC belt until next Friday, and the women’s tag belts are in limbo…and it was just an underwhelming card.
Here it is, in a nutshell:
Frankly, this sucks, for a couple reasons.
Pec injuries, complete tears like this, require surgery and missed time. Rhodes just got back and was rolling.
So, losing him is a miss.
On top of that, it was a partial tear during RAW, that became a full-blown, much worse complete tear, due to lifting.
Or, translating it as I did in my own head? The longer downtime we can likely expect for Rhodes, could have possibly been avoided.
Like…you just brought him back at great expense. You were building a lot around him.
Shut him down, get him to a specialist, take it slow and easy and at worst, he’s back at 100% for SummerSlam.
Now, unless the diagnosis is wrong…best case is maybe in time for Day One, or a Rumble return.
Of course, that is all subject to change upon further information being revealed…but it’s a major miss any way you slice it.
Not only lost…but in decisive fashion.
Like, not close. Clean, no doubt about it.
The only thing this makes me wonder is…is WWE eventually planning on going from Zeke to Elias, and this is a part of the plan?
But as I say that, it does not make much sense to me…so why would they do that.
Just one. Especially with how Lashley and Omos had a cage match just a couple weeks back, I fully expected that one to be in the Cell, too.
Now, it isn’t all bad. Despite the underwhelming lineup, it can’t be.
Starting with…
Triple threats have been kind of done to death, but this one was fine.
My main complaint? I swear it feels like Bianca Belair, with a belt on her, has opened shows before.
Maybe I am wrong, and I am admittedly not going back to check.
The point here is…maybe consider main event spots? Or, closer to it?
However, I do acknowledge that kicking off a show is important too. Get the crowd going with a hot opening match, set the tone.
All three women, in my opinion, brought it.
If anything, Asuka did the job here, protecting Becky a wee bit.
Plus, this was the right result. WWE needs more strong female Superstars, and they need to continue to build Bianca up.
A match like this, with a result like this, goes a long way toward keeping her a credible top tier female Superstar.
The handicap match was nothing spectacular. Notable that here, MVP was really in it to take the pin and loss.
But, after the match, Bobby found a belt…and played to the crowd…and the announcers embraced it.
If you forgot…generally little gets said on air that Vince doesn’t approve of, if not outright pump in to them through their headsets. Or, so we’ve heard.
In which case…is WWE prepping us for a Lashley-Reigns match?
We had heard the next 3 opponents were likely Riddle, Orton and McIntyre, in that order.
However, we’ve also been hearing weekly on RAW that Orton is hurt and his future is in doubt.
Is this a pivot to a possible Lashley-Reigns SummerSlam clash? Orton is a big name…but Lashley isn’t a bad option either.
It sure seems like Cedric Alexander had himself a face turn. Not saying that Cedric and Bobby might re-form a face version of the Hurt Business, but they walked away on good terms.
My guess? We may see Cedric and Lashley team against Omos and MVP for some future episodes of RAW.
No shock, really. You can’t turn him face and not give him a nice win.
It’s also a chance for WWE now to just ditch the Happy stuff, should they want.
I liked this match, simple as that. Happy Ali is still in WWE, and didn’t expect him to win, but it was a fun match.
Just the sheer fact that Rhodes was there, and took bumps…look up above, that injury is 1000% legit and there was no hiding it.
Rollins came with the mind games too-polka dots and all.
It was a really good match, and due to the nature of the injury, Rhodes was primarily a one armed man.
This meant that these two had to work magic to tell a story. I am certain it is not the match that was worked up as of a week ago.
But, it was the match we got. Tremendous effort under the circumstances.
Like…legend making, especially given his condition and that Rhodes pulled out the win.
Without the injury, it was a really good Cell match. With the injury, they had to work magic and tell a brilliant story…and I think they did.
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