Did you watch it?

Update: I watched it. Good night

I watched it. They call the PPV "Hell In A Cell" but there were only 2 HIAC matches. The fact that Rollins/Kane wasn't one of them kind of bugged me (along with the fact that everyone knew how it was going to finish because it was Kane in a championship match, duh).

The Lesnar/Taker one was good but didn't match the Lesnar hype-machine, and the attempts at making a big deal about the "exposed ring area" were laughable when you can clearly see them landing their moves on the padding next to the hole. Still though it was my favorite match of the night.

I don't know who to blame for the ho-hum Owens/Ryback match, all I know is that Owens' pop-up powerbomb move looks fake as poo poo even when someone talented is taking it, so of course Ryback (whose body I swear is 40% tumors) looked like he was quitting wrestling to go jump on trampolines for a living.

I'm actually liking that Alberto Del Rio is back, but I have no idea whatsoever why they felt they needed to pair him with Zeb Colter. Even Zeb's opening promo hinted this pairing made no sense while he was trying to explain it to the audience. And the finish for that match was kind of out-of-nowhere. Kind of curious to see where this is going.

And shout-outs to Charlotte and Nikki for creating a PPV Divas experience that wasn't officially the popcorn match of the night (that honor goes to Owens/Ryback IMO). Solid storytelling during this match, and I LOVE the lead up to the Figure Eight. Charlotte and Bayley are easily my 2 favorite ladies in wrestling, possibly ever.

Finally, big props to Booker T's man-bun. Dude looked like he had a grenade strapped to the back of his head all night.

My favorite as always was New Day vs. Dudley Boys. When Kofi tossed the trombone to Bubba and pretended to get hit with it... LOL!


Also at the end of the Divas match when Paige kept trying to get in-between Charlotte and B. Lynch, that was funny as well.

My thoughts:

I legitimately thought I dislocated my jaw saying HOLY poo poo when Del Rio won. Really curious where this goes because he's apparently still the AAA Mega Champion. I didn't really care about him during his first WWE run but I've been getting caught up on Lucha Underground recently and all of a sudden I really like him.

Wyatt needed that win so much more than Reigns (especially if he's now in an angle with Taker, who he's already lost to). Very good match but ending it with the typical SPEAR OUT OF NOWHERE was stupid when they already had a brutal spot set up Reigns could have just reversed to pick up the win. I'm impressed with how much Reigns is improving, but that doesn't mean he needs to win every match he's in, especially in the same exact way. It's really frustrating that WWE has learned nothing from the reactions to Cena over the past decade.

New Day is almost always my favorite part of WWE shows but I tuned out their match because I can't bring myself to care about the Dudleys in 2015. I appreciate what they did for the tag division but nostalgia runs really don't do anything for me.

Same deal with Owens/Ryback. Owens is one of my favorites on the roster but Ryback really bores me.

Charlotte/Nikki was pretty good. The alabama slam on the ring apron was fetching brutal and it was refreshing to hear a "holy poo poo" chant during a divas match.

Rollins/Kane was dumb, their whole feud is dumb, Kane playing two characters was a fun novelty that quickly wore off, Rollins deserves better.

Lesnar/Taker was great even though I agree it was way too obvious their moves weren't landing on the exposed ring area. Tied with the other cell match for my favorite match of the night. I'm interested in where the thing with the Wyatt Family goes since this seems to be Taker's farewell tour.

Overall: As with most WWE shows nowadays, good in terms of match quality, but some stupid decisions that soured the whole thing.

I didn't know who Alberto Del Rio was before but twitter spoiled it for me anyway. There was a fake (Real?) Donald Trump account that said something like, "Really disappointed to see our United States championship in the hands of an illegal immigrant" so I knew he was going to win. Twitter is poo poo

I'm on the west coast so I'm used to staying off  social media for 3 hours before any wrestling show I plan on watching.

And someone needs to explain Kevin Owens' appeal to me. Apart from the cannonball thing he does, I have yet to see him do anything that another roster member doesn't do better, and his finisher is comically fake looking. I watched him give it to Cesaro  on RAW tonight (giggidy) and even the highly talented Cesaro couldn't make that move look legit. I feel like most people would figure out that if they simply never did an unnatural legs-akimbo cheerleader jump while a fat man lightly pushes on their nipples then they will be immune to pop up powerbombs.

He gave it to Mark Henry on RAW last week or something, I was surprised MH could jump that high!

frick KO

^^yeah, this bullpoo poo right here. This is why I don't get the appeal. But the skuttlebutt from backstage is that management really likes him for some reason. It's probably a workrate thing I'm not meant to understand.

Have you guys seen his matches with Cena? Especially the first one at Elimination Chamber. He has a great moveset that he hasn't really been able to show off lately because none of his other matches have been that high-profile. Sure, some people can do some of what he does better, but he's a total-package deal where he's a great brawler as well as being able to do athletic stuff a man his size shouldn't. It's a similar appeal to Vader doing the moonsault back in the day.

About his finisher, I agree it looks fetching stupid when he does it someone as big as Mark Henry. It looked great in NXT because a lot of his opponents were small enough for it to be feasible, but I'd like to see him start doing a regular powerbomb on bigger opponents now that he's on the main roster, and use a pop-up/catch variation more situationally against smaller guys like Cesaro's uppercut.

I've never thought it looked great. My main issue is I can clearly see the opponent doing all the work. The unnatural "throwing legs up midair" thing is a dead giveaway, and some opponents can't even time the run into the move correctly without looking like they're getting ready to jump. The move doesn't look anything like KO is lifting dudes chest-first into the air off the tips of his fingers unless we're all agreeing that he's in the X-Men and has telekinesis or something.

I'll buy that he's more acrobatic than guys his size, but the acrobatic big guy thing is starting to become normalized. Apollo Crews has a standing moonsault, Big E's shown off some acrobatics, Samoa Joe's enziguiris look downright evil, etc. Brock used to be able to do a shooting star press until he gave himself a concussion trying it at WM19 (but god bless Kurt Angle, he still sold it like a gunshot).

It just now occurs to me that he's a scruffy jugglo-looking motherfetcher who came from basically nowhere, does moves considered impossible for his body type, and wins against all the established names. I think KO's a self-insertion CAW character from WWE 2K14 come to life.

hell in a cell was living with my old roommates

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