Hooo Boy! Raw has not been looking well, lately, we’re stumbling awkwardly into Hell In A Cell: Cell Warriors. Between not knowing how to write for the characters they have, finding a way to make the championships meaningless, and building to PPVs by giving away the matches for free before the PPV, I’m convinced this is creative’s off-season.
The few saving graces have either been done ad nauseam or abandoned altogether. We’ve also spent two weeks hyping up a match that’s not happening until the NEXT PPV. Rough.
Trending
New Champs in WWE! More RIGHT HERE
Cedric Alexander, Lince Dorado, and Sin Cara vs Tony Nese, Drew Gulak, and Ariya Daivari - Kickoff
On Stone Cold’s podcast, Vince McMahon famously said they don’t do “wrestling for wrestling’s sake.” meaning, they use the stories and characters and dialogue to dictate the matches. Cool. I’m super into that, It’s pretty much why I watch pro wrestling in the first place.
So here we are, with a bunch of dudes that were hyped all summer, then given zero character development upon main roster arrival, wrestling for no good reason other than “Look at these guys! They’re like real wrestlers, but slightly smaller!”
Also read: Brock Lesnar to appear at WWE Hell in a Cell PPV?
Why aren’t we having a #1 Contender’s match? Is Brian #1 contender forever? This whole Cruiserweight Division thing has petered out so quickly I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re burying it on purpose.
As for the actual match, I bet it’ll be great fun. These guys are all super talented, Alexander being the one with the most potential to break through the purple-roped ceiling. Sin Cara being the one with the most potential to injure himself. I’d actually like to see Nese and crew win this and set up some feuds or something.
Anything. As it stands, Alexander & Co will probably win and everyone will be all “Look how good the little tykes wrestled! Aren’t they cute? Ok, on with the real show…”
#1 Bayley vs Dana Brooke
The Raw Women’s division is also confusing the hell out of me.
The only story centres around the belt with this sub-feud as, I don’t know, filler for Bayley? Meanwhile, Nia Jax, Summer Rae, Alicia Fox are missing in action, and we have Emma returning soon, maybe? I know Sasha’s Summerslam scare messed up their planned timeline, but they are definitely not utilising their talent.
Emma is one of my favourite wrestlers in the company, and after her completely mishandled debut on the main roster, she made a great comeback with Evil Emma.
It was great, I was all in, with Brooke as her strong pose sidekick. Then she got injured and I guess her new, returning “Emmalina” character is “Instagram star” and I hate it. Triple hate it. The only hope is that it’s a swerve and she comes back, even more of a Future Cop evil.
Also read: WWE Hell in a Cell 2016: 7 Possible shocks that could happen at the PPV
But yeah, I don’t think we get much more than Bayley carrying Dana through a good enough match, giving Bayley a solid win.
Brooke’s is underrated as a character who has room to improve in the ring, but Bayley is my everything. I’d even be ok with her losing and they sort of update her underdog status from NXT. I can deal with a slow burn run at whoever has the belt down the line (Banks).
#2 Enzo & Cass vs The Club
Oh, good! The two teams that have effectively been ruined the most since coming to Raw in combat for no real reason.
E&C were neon flames when they debuted on the red brand, then slipped into sophomoric humour (deadening their best asset) and general creepiness. I’ll give ‘em the “no mics” thing they did last week, that was really cool, but I really wanna see a fired up and focused Enzo and Cass. Soon.
The Club is even worse off. They teamed up with AJ to start, and when they lost AJ they dove head first into even sophomoric-ier humour. Balls and old farts? Sup, Vince? I see you editing these bits back there.
Then they publicly stated “We’re done being stupid gimmicks we’re really super tough guys, watch out we have intimidating logos on our in ring AND entrance gear” and went IMMEDIATELY BACK TO DUMB PROMOS.
Now they dropped the lab jackets but it’s still just a one-note game of I Know You Are, But What Am I? With E&C. All the while the announcers are like “they’re one of the best, most feared teams in the world” and I don’t understand any of it.
So fine, I enjoy watching Enzo & Cass wrestle and I’m reaaally hoping for The Club to do something that makes me care, but I don’t know what they can do at this point. Best I can hope for is E&C get the win, The Club keeps harassing them until Survivor Series where they get a new leader and finally make a real impact.
#3 TJ Perkins (c) vs Brian Kendrick - Cruiserweight Championship
Perpetual #1 contender, Brian Kendrick is once again getting a “last chance” at the Cruiserweight title.
I’ve lost count on how many shots he’s gotten but he must have a bunch of extra lives (heh) to keep restarting (hehehe) his MyCareer (haaaaaaaaaaaa!) and keep bumping the entire division out of contention. Meaning we haven’t moved forward at all since day one of Raw’s Cruiserweight Division.
TJP is a great talent, but he shouldn’t have won the CWC and his weaknesses are showing now that he’s the focal point of the division. He has already worn out every base video game reference possible that it’s just kind of grating, now, but I guess that’s easy to do. I just did it in the last paragraph.
Kendrick has to win, I guess. Probably by foul play. He’s playing the “desperation” angle too hard to just lose so he’ll sneak out a win and TJ will get 30 rematches and we’ll never learn a damn thing about anyone else in the division.
#4 The New Day (c) vs Cesaro and Sheamus - Raw Tag Team Championship
Go watch the last Raw. We already saw this. Cesaro and Sheamus won. Clean. Because now they can suddenly work together instead of Instagramming at each other. So the build for the championship match on Sunday was.
So if Cesaro and Sheamus win on Sunday, after months of them trying to prove who was the better of the two only to be forced to team up if they want a championship opportunity, who’s gonna care?
Creative Guy #4: We’ve built this story for a long time now, almost 20 matches, and it’s coming to a head at Hell In A Cell. How can we strip that match of all drama and emotion?Creative Guy #2: Do the match on Monday instead. Then also on Sunday, but with the belts, to make the match shinier.Creative Guy #1: Brilliant!!!Creative Guy #3: Can we order Popeye’s for lunch today?
Or The New Day retains and we spent half the summer setting up Cesaro and Sheamus as a badass, if not shaky, tag team only to kill it on the day they should be getting a huge, exciting win.
#5 Roman Reigns (c) vs Rusev - United States Championship (Cell)
Well, all my dreams of a 7-year reign for Rusev were destroyed by the whiney, demanding, cocky, soaking wet good guy Roman Reigns.
You see, Roman is of Samoan descent so he can have a shot at any championship he wants at any time just by showing up. Rusev loves his wife and country, which are the two worst things you can do in the WWE Universe.
This whole feud is a black hole of common sense and an exercise in marathon banality. The only way to save this is a double turn. All they would have to do is have the announcers switch who they’re rooting for, the wrestlers have already done all the work.
I honestly think there was a classic 80s movie mix up and they were given each other’s scripts.
Roman and Rusev on paper should be so good. They have a great clash of styles and both are terribly underrated in the ring. And now it’s in a cell, which in WWEspeak means “very serious, probably last match ever.” As it goes, I’m just annoyed by the whole thing at this point and I just want to see blood. For blood’s sake.
#6 Kevin Owens (c) vs Seth Rollins - Universal Championship (Cell)
This is the match I’m really looking forward to. Rollins is a delight to watch and Kevin Owens is currently one of my favourite wrestlers on Raw. I think this might be the match that utilises the cell the most out of the three. With these two left alone to focus on each other, things could get ultra rad.
But everything leading up to this has been a slow-motion train wreck.
Rollins is a whiney, demanding, cocky, super wet...guy? He’s supposed to be the good guy but all he does is complain. He’s supposed to be fighting the powers above him and always being just out of reach of grabbing the gold but he’s out here winning handicap matches against a wise vet and the champ by pinning BOTH MEN AT THE SAME TIME.
Kevin Owens is so far ahead of everyone as far as mic work, humour, subtlety, emotion and compelling wrestling are concerned. So what’s the best move to highlight his strengths? Have a career-high Jericho outshine him every night with The List.
Comedy props are worth way more than Universal Belts these days so follow the money, I guess.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a giant fan of JeriKO, they’re one of the only good parts of Raw lately, but come on. There has to be some way to make the guy with the top belt on the flagship show NOT be the sidekick to the hip rock ‘n roll dad with accessories.
KO wins so we can move Seth onto Triple H for the next couple of months. That reminds me, Triple H will probably show up and help Kev while Jericho puts someone on The List. Possibly Owens.
#7 Sasha Banks (c) vs Charlotte - Raw Women’s Championship (Cell)
I thought this was the headliner because that was the general consensus and that would have been super rad. It’s easily the most historic, being the first Women’s Hell In Cell match. In every possible sense, this match should close the night out and burn the building to the ground.
I don’t think this will get too crazy, though, because honestly, Hell In A Cell matches rarely do. It’s usually just a regular match in a cage. There’s maybe five Cell matches that lived up to the name.
The rest are just awkwardly filmed claustrophobic no-DQ matches. I’m fine with just a good, competitive, exciting match, I don’t wanna see these girls burn themselves to the ground like they’ve been doing since they started this feud.
It’s fine, this will be fun enough, but having Old Man Mick Foley scream about the horrors of the Cell in the faces of the two girls who are clearly game for it, is really confusing because, um, he booked the match himself. And was super proud of himself for doing so.
So yeah, Mick, pump the breaks and go home if it’s so hard to stand and scream at women in the ring.
The other nonsense is, like I said, this was supposed to be the main event. Then it was the main event, but one of THREE Hell In A Cell matches, so that took some of the shine off the ladies. Now, it seems that they can’t even pull the trigger on that and it’s not even gonna be the true main event.
Welcome to Stephanie’s Women’s Revolution feat. Mick Foley. Special guest cameo from Vince McMahon. I hope I am wrong about everything this weekend.
For latest WWE News, live coverage and rumours visit our Sportskeeda WWE section. Also if you are attending a WWE Live event or have a news tip for us drop us an email at fightclub (at) sportskeeda (dot) com.
