5 Ways WWE can make Hell in a Cell feel more important

#4 Completely avoid crazy high-risk moves

Mankind put his body in terrible danger in the second-ever Hell in a Cell match.

Yes, the most iconic Hell in a Cell match is as well-remembered as it is because of the pair of insane falls taken by Mankind -- one off the top and one through the top. The issue with that was that it set a precedent for insanity.

Shawn Michaels had taken a fall through the announce table from about halfway up the Cell in the match about eight months earlier. Less than two years later, Cactus Jack reprised his role of "guy who falls through the top of the cage and into the ring". Rikishi was chokeslammed off the top of the cage 10 months later.

They went a little more than a decade before another truly crazy spot, but for the most part, the cage was used in a limited fashion, as discussed earlier. From about 2006 until 2016, the Cell matches were pretty tame, getting more and more tame with a few notable exceptions (Undertaker vs. Triple H in 2012 and Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar in 2015).

For a few years, the fans were pretty quiet until it looked like the Superstars were going to do something crazy, and there was often disappointment when nothing crazy happened. Fans had been programmed to expect brutality (use of the cage, crazy weaponry, and blood), and then after a couple of years that ceased as well, and expectations fell to nothing. The big attraction was the cage itself, not anything that was happening inside.

Shane McMahon returned and willingly dove off the top of the Cell in his return match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 32 in 2016. In his match with Kevin Owens the following year at the Hell in a Cell PPV, Owens took a big fall from more than halfway up the cage, and Shane jumped off the top of his own volition again.

Because of that (and because he's been crazy for two decades), it was disappointing when nothing crazy happened in the Jeff Hardy/Randy Orton match last year, or in the Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman match, which was part of a feud that had escalated to the point where something insane was expected based on all they had already done.

Hopefully nothing crazy happens outside of the confines of the cage this year, but both the men and the women come up with innovative and creative ways to use their environment to make their matches special.