Last night’s Hell in a Cell Pay per view was the best main roster event so far this year. All the previous offerings from the main rosters of the WWE have been borderline mediocre at best, and many thought last night’s offering would follow in the footsteps of its previous poor showings. The thing is last night PPV was simply amazing, even with the no contest finish of the main event. All during the night, match after match, even matches that I personally thought would be stinkers actually delivered on all fronts. Even though there were a couple of botchy finishes (one clearly intentional and one that wasn’t), I was truly entertained from the lone pre show match all the way to the complete cluster finish of the main event–an I was quite happily surprised by it all. This is what brought me to the conclusion that if not for the September 1st ALL IN pay per view, I don’t think last night’s HiaC PPV would have been as good as it was, and here are my reasons why.
The ALL IN pay per view was a show for the ages. Every match ranged from very good all the way to top-shelf action. There was not a bad match on the whole card, and it started with an amazing tag match and Over the top Battle Royale during the pre-show, which saw Flip Gordon win and finally get his spot during the main show of ALL IN. A storyline that had been masterfully told during the many weeks and months leading up to the event on the “Being the Elite” show on YouTube. There was a build-up to the pay per view, but it grew organically out of the show. There was no big speechifying during a weekly show, though RoH (Ring of Honor) have shows on a regular enough schedule, as does NJPW (New Japan Pro Wrestling). Fans got to see some dream matches that we’d never thought would happen, like Kenny Omega vs Pentagon Jr (El Zero). Also, the most important thing about the show in any respect is that it was a PPV from independent promoters (Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks) that sold out 10,000 tickets in less than thirty minutes–something that hasn’t been done since the days of the Monday Night Wars of the late 80s/mid 90s. It showed the world (especially the bigwigs of the WWE) that fans of pro wrestling, even those vaulted casual fans, and kids that the WWE holds so dear, will pay to go see a show that has good matches and solid wrestling over the pomp, puff, and fluff of a WWE show. It showed everyone in the industry that good matches and good, solid stories are what’s most important. There was no over the top stupidity outside the ring. There were no story recaps that took up valuable time from a great story being told in the ring. There were just solid stories being told where it counts–in the ring.
I think the ALL IN pay per view earlier this month was a wake-up call to the creative team of the WWE and specifically Vince McMahon. Now true this is only my opinion, so take it for what it is. I think the creative team sat and watch ALL IN, saw how the audience responded all night during the event, saw how after the event was officially over it seemed no one in attendance wanted to leave, all the positive feelings and goodwill during the event, and how the pay per view as a whole was received as a massive success and thought, “Uh Oh”–and uh oh is right. For too long, many of us in the wrestling fans community have been complaining about the lack of good storylines on the main roster, and also about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency or wantonness on the part of the main roster’s creative to allow the wrestlers to put on top-level matches during the main roster’s PPVs. It seemed as if the heart of the main roster has been lost, and complacency has slowly crept in to replace it. I think ALL IN woke the WWE higher-ups to the fact that they aren’t the only show on the block anymore. They have to pay attention to the RoHs and NJPWs of the world now, and stop just trying to steal all the talent from these promotions, because the main roster of the WWE has gotten so bad that there are many indie wrestlers who are passing up the chance to work for them, because they are scared that the goodwill, prowess, and cache that they’ve built up with their fanbases will diminish if they sign with the biggest game in town. It was past time for the bigwigs of the WWE to sit up and take notice of what’s going on in the indies now and rise to the occasion.
WWE had no other recourse than to step it up for last night’s pay per view, and boy did they. Every match was either good or better with the matches of the night going to the Orton/Hardy Hell in a Cell match and the tag match for the RAW Tag Team Championship between Rollins & Ambrose of the S.H.I.E.L.D. vs Ziggler & McIntyre of the Dogs of War. Very good stories were told in the ring for each match on the card, even the main event. I loved that Becky Lynch FINALLY won the Smackdown Women’s Championship again–it was about damn time. The match between the Bryans and the Mizanins was a very well told story in the ring as well. I thought this had the potential to be one of the poorer matches of the night, but a few botches put aside, I was very happily wrong. To top the pay per view all off was a pre-show match that was very entertaining and got the ball rolling between the New Day and Rusev Day. The New Day never fails to entertain inside and outside the ring, and the members of Rusev Day definitely rose to the occasion. The pay per view on the whole, including the crazy no contest cluster that was the ending, was very entertaining. They made me halfway care about Lesnar again! It seemed that Lesnar actually cared about his role in the match, and that shocked the shit out of me.
ALL IN made the WWE higher-ups care about giving their fans what they want, or at least it’s what they want us to think. I just feel that without the success of ALL IN I don’t think we would have gotten the PPV we did last night. I think without wrestling pay per views like Dominion, Triplemania and most specifically ALL IN, we as fans of wrestling would have gotten the pay per view we did last night. I honestly think we would have gotten what has become the status quo, ho-hum, disappointing pay per views we’ve come to see from the main roster of the WWE. I say the main roster because NXT‘s (WWE’s developmental promotion) Takeovers have been killing the offerings from the main roster for some time now. It has become so much of a given now, that there is a great number of WWE fans who prefer NXT over anything the main roster is doing right now, and it’s supposed to be the other way around, I would think.
What do you think? Did you like the Hell in a Cell pay per view last night? Did it match up to ALL IN? What did you think of the ending of the pay per view? What was your favorite match of the night? Leave a like, dislike or comment and let me know what you think.
