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Last night’s Hell-in-a-Cell pay-per-view was a good one. It had to be as the buildup to this one was among the best that WWE had put out this year.
The main-event of the night has been in the making for over 2 months now and last night, it had to deliver a definitive finish after the ho-hum status around it for weeks.
Then you had John Cena, the biggest star in the company making a comeback, sooner than expected, to face the long-reigning world champion in Alberto del Rio.
Just the fact that Cena, who gets the loudest reaction every night by the way, was returning from a layoff was reason enough for the pay-per-view to stand out from the crowd, but the stakes were higher any way with the possibility of a culmination of the Punk – Heyman feud. This feud too has been on the grind for months, and everyone were curious to see how it would come to a halt.
The pay-per-view for the major part delivered with quality matches and even the promo work was pretty good throughout the night, with the Miz – Wyatts storyline leading the way.
The show opened with an awesome match involving the 3 tag-teams that have breathed new life into the tag division, the Usos, the Shield & The Rhodes and the action in the ring was good to stellar for the most part.
But like in every event, the highs had to have some company in the form of some lows, and the below listed were not among the best for the night, in my opinion at least.
Fandango & Summer Rae vs The Great Khali & Natalya
This match had the unenviable task of following the lead of two great segments, the first featuring the tag match which was followed by the Miz calling out Bray Wyatt which also featured the return of Kane. Faced with such a task, did the match deliver or what!
Well, as fans of the WWE, the good thing is that we know how to manage our expectations and that skill came in handy as this filler of a match pretty much killed any momentum that had been built so far. Fandango’s fall from grace has been epic and the fact that he is feuding with the likes of Khali would have Chris Jericho pulling his hair out, thinking about how he put this guy over at this year’s Wrestlemania.
The match was a dud and while the divas tried to make it entertaining, it was not to be as the miserable duo of Khali & Hornswoggle plodded their way into the match and made it a no-hoper
Big E Langston vs Dean Ambrose
It’s hard to imagine Ambrose delivering a dud, given his run as part of the Shield over the past year, but last night he was faced with the ominous task of pulling off an unscheduled match with the newest babyface in town, Big E Langston, who was supposed to be facing Curtis Axel for the IC belt. And as much as he tried, the crowd was flat for the ‘rookie’ trying to put the champ away and while Langston did try to run through Ambrose with his power moves, the match was clearly lacking imagination and so ended with a finish that a match such as this would warrant : a count-out victory for Big E Langston
CM Punk vs Ryback & Paul Heyman (Hell in a Cell)
Who would have thought that the climax of a feud between the two ‘Bests in the world’ would fall so flat!
This feud has been on for months on TV and while it had ran it’s course 2 pay-per-views back, the fact that it featured Paul Heyman & CM Punk was good reason to tune in to another match that promised the ‘Prodigal son’ Punk put a beating on his former mentor Heyman. Unless we take away the fact that Heyman never got into the ring inside the structure, which made it ridiculous that he was even considered a participant in the match.
Ryback & Punk don’t have that good a chemistry, and it was plain evident in their match as it featured a few strongman spots from the big guy and Punk ended up breaking a table under him after an elbow drop and then pinned him. After the match, it was a case of ‘too little, too late’ as Punk climbed up the structure and beat the Paulrus with a kendo stick and threw in a GTS for good measure, which did make for a good visual. But after months of threats from Punk talking about revenge, Heyman deserved a bigger comeuppance I would think.
