Views From The Turnbuckle: Live HIAC Notes, Show Review, Analysis And More!

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Hell in a Cell marked my return to PPV, the first WWE one I have attended since Money in the Bank a couple years ago. Here is a chronological breakdown of my thoughts on the show. Just a reminder that I don’t rate matches that I saw live, as my experienced differed from 99 percent of the rest of the people who saw the show.

•Getting into the Garden was kind of hard because they only had one real entrance and the line was backed up. Once the gates opened it wasn’t that bad and I was able to breeze right in. Walking around beforehand let me know that this was going to be a crowd of a lot of hardcore fans. A lot of people dressed up; Razor Ramon being a particular big hit. Most popular T-shirts were Seth Rollins and The New Day by-far. Definitely the fewest Cena shirts I have seen at a WWE event.

•Pre-show the crowd started out dead but came around for all the highspots in the cruiserweight six man tag. I thought Drew Gulak was fantastic in this match and was the star of the pre-show. I’m not sure why they didn’t have Rich Swann in this match, since I think he has the best chance right now of being a star and is likely going to face Kendrick for the title soon.

•Opening match was solid. Rusev was the crowd favorite although Reigns certainly had some fans and the crowd reacted largely positively to his victory. It was a good, not great match; but they kept things simple as far as the big spots and allowed Rollins/Owens and Banks/Charlotte to do a lot of the really big stuff. My only issue would be that Reigns; like Cena, has an indomitable quality about him and it makes matches like this tough. Even when Rusev was choking him with the chain you knew Reigns would never submit and in a move straight out of the SuperCena playbook he powered out of the move, hit his finisher and one the match. It’s the same ending they do for most of his big matches and it isn’t helping him get over. I don’t know who is next opponent is going to be and I sure as hell don’t know what is next for Rusev; who I thought was terrific in this feud.

•The second match was a dud. The crowd liked Bayley and popped for her entrance and when she won, but they didn’t care much for the match. Dana Brooke is just so limited in the ring that it makes any singles match she is in pretty boring, even while working with someone as over as Bayley. The one good thing about a potential injury to Banks is that it will allow Bayley to slip away from Brooke and work with Charlotte; which is a tremendous upgrade.

•Enzo and Cass were super over; even if the pandering to Bostonians by a pair of New Yorkers was completely out of line. The match was uninspired, I really think Enzo and Cass should work with The New Day instead of keeping them away from each other. During this match a fight broke out in my section and when security escorted the perpetrator away the fans started chanting “Delete! Delete! Delete!”

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