WWE HELL IN A CELL 2019

OCTOBER 6, 2019

GOLDEN 1 CENTER

SACRAMENTO, CA

Watch: WWE Network

Meet our reviewers: 

Kelly Harrass: This show is appropriately spooky for this time of year. How is it spooky? Well, there’s a lot of mystery to this show with it only having a four-match card. What greater fear is there than that of the unknown? How will Kelly and Garrett react to all of these spooks, haunts, tricks, and treats? Read on to find out! And follow Kelly over on Twitter at @comicgeekelly. 

Garrett Kidney: Garrett is sad they announced matches for this show an hour before. He’d have preferred a wacky surprise card. Also the matches don’t look particularly interesting. Oh well. Hell in a Cell Mystery Vortex baby. Follow Garrett on Twitter at @garrettkidney. *honk* 

Natalya vs. Lacey Evans 

Kelly: Not a chance I’m reviewing this pre-show match. I’m trying my hardest to beat Link’s Awakening before the show starts. (I finished it in time!) 

Garrett: I’m not sure does the fact that Lacey Evans does a comically bad Sharpshooter make this story better or worse. I guess the fact that Ember Moon actually had to submit to it on TV makes it worse. Natalya’s Sharpshooter is also bad though so I don’t know. This match was long and boring and nobody cared. Because Kelly mentioned the end of Link’s Awakening, listen to the closing credits music to the game twice instead of watching this match. It’s incredible, especially when it weaves in some of the old Gameboy chiptunes. ** 

WWE Raw Women’s Championship: Hell in a Cell Match: Becky Lynch © def. Sasha Banks 

Kelly: My big take away from this match is that I’m glad that the wrestlers in WWE have learned to be more creative within the confines of a WWE hardcore match. When you’re only allowed to use tables, chairs, ladders, and kendo sticks, it gets boring. I give Becky and Sasha a ton of credit for doing something I’ve never seen before with that chair held up in the corner by kendo sticks spot. I thought as a whole that this match ruled. I have some minor nitpicks here and there, but none were big enough to ruin this match for me. These two beat the hell out of each other and that’s really all I wanted out of this. The story they told made sense, as did 99% of the spots, which is a lot more than I can say for most WWE plunder matches. The only bit that made me question the match was when Sasha went to the top rope to jump on Becky and some chairs that were laying next to her. It was easy to see what was coming next, but that’s my lone complaint. This was a hot opener and easily the best HIAC since the match between the New Day and the Usos a few years back. ****¼ 

Garrett: I’m somewhat conflicted on this. I don’t like the Hell in a Cell just becoming another WWE plunder match – where the action isn’t remarkably dissimilar from a Street Fight or a TLC match. Stipulations should feel distinct and different and all these are blending together into one broad plunder style. The first third was also a little dull and some of the set up contrived, but a lot of the actual Hell in a Cell related action was really good and pretty inventive. The earned a great response from a somewhat disinterested crowd early and built in some pretty great nearfalls. Becky winning was the right call, having her lose two days after being endorsed by The Rock would have been a waste. A very good opener despite my misgivings about WWE gimmick matches veering toward homogeneity. ***1/2

Tornado Tag Match: Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns def. Erick Rowan and Luke Harper

Kelly: When you hear tornado tag, you assume that you’re going to get a fast paced, action packed match. And we got it… eventually. The first three quarters of the match were not that though. It was your basic WWE southern style tag match, but both of the heels were in the ring at the same time instead of tagging in and out. Once we got to the fourth quarter, the match was pretty solid and had a hot closing stretch. Regardless of a good finish, this match was a let down that didn’t come close to living up to its full potential. *** 

Garrett: If the opener was inventive WWE plunder, this was the kind of samey WWE plunder you’ve seen a thousand times – announce table spot and all. Despite being a tornado tag, they still did a relatively standard tag team match where they got the heat with a guy lying on the floor rather than standing on the apron. In the same way the Tag title match at Extreme Rules made me want Bryan vs. Big E, I just watched this match thinking about wanting Bryan vs. Harper. Meh. Bryan and Reigns had a nice little hug afterwards. **3/4

Randy Orton def. Ali

Kelly: Between the big ass welt on Daniel Bryan’s back and now the big ass bruise on Ali’s ribs, it’s nice to have these visual reminders that this is the safe company. On the other side of things, Randy celebrated saying a bad word on the internet by having a very boring match with an exciting wrestler. This was a time filler and a bad one at that. Ali deserves better. * 

Garrett: Randy came flying out of the gates working a fast paced wristlock. He proceeded to methodically work his way to an extended chinlock. Yay. This absolutely sucked. Sleepwalking Randy Orton at his very worst. The idea, the concept of this match is to have Ali go toe to toe with Orton and gain credibility in defeat. You saw a great example of that format done well on AEW this week with Sammy Guevara and Cody. Despite the announcers talking about Ali’s HEART and SOUL and GUTS, this crowd couldn’t care less about him – cheering loudly when he lost and the only notable noise they made during the body of the contest being an “RKO” champ. Terrible execution of a terrible tedious match. DUD

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship: The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) def. Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross © 

Kelly: I love how Asuka and Kairi are supposed to be positioned as heels now and are still universally loved by the fans. It’s almost as if people want these two to be pushed and don’t care how it happens. This match was fine. To be honest, I’m probably slapping on an extra star just because Asuka used the Kawada kicks and that’s something you don’t normally see in this company. It’s good to see the Kabuki Warriors win a title that doesn’t require them to be in a parade of geeks. **¾ 

Garrett: This was a wrestling match. The right team won and a pivot to The Kabuki Warriors vs. Sasha and Bayley would be smart. Asuka and Sane both have great themes; their mash up, however, sucks. Asuka won with the green mist – I think in theory cheating – but the crowd still cheered so who knows. This company really cannot manipulate their audience anymore. Most of their “heel turns” are met with raucous cheers. This felt like a house show match. *1/2

The Viking Raiders (Ivar and Erik) and Braun Strowman def. The O.C. (AJ Styles, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson) via DQ

Kelly: This is the kind of match that Coach and Al Snow would call on Sunday Night Heat. And not even a good episode of Heat. My Mom’s currently watching Goto vs. Shingo while I’m watching this garbage. What am I doing? DUD 

Garrett: I feel like this show is now consciously wasting my time. DUD

Shorty Gable def. King Corbin 

Kelly: I hate this. I’ve been tricked into watch an episode of Raw. They couldn’t even give Chad Gable a definitive win over Corbin here. He had to get the roll up after what felt like hours of boring wrestling. Gable is too much of a tiny little boy to get a real win. I look forward to Gable getting a bagel boss guy gimmick in three years when Vince finally hears about it. No gods. No bosses. No fathers. Only itty bitty legs. DUD 

Garrett: I’m trying to get mad at this. I’m trying to mount the level of investment to get fired up about it. This was a boring match that was far too long that the crowd didn’t care about and only actually became modestly interesting in very short bursts before slowing to a slow, agonising, tortuous halt again. I’m trying to muster up the passion to express disdain for Chad Gable being announced as Shorty Gable or for him only beating Corbin with a slip on a banana peel pin. I’m desperately trying to care enough about any of that. But I can’t. Who cares? It doesn’t matter. It sucks but it will always suck. Chad Gable should be a can’t miss talent but he’s short. Corbin isn’t a major league performer but he’s tall. That’s all it comes down to. Why dig deeper than that? That’s the sum total of thought that has gone into this story. This company sucks. In an era where there has never been more competition, this has been one of the most boring PPVs in wrestling history. DUD

WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair def. Bayley © 

Kelly: It’s kind of insane that Charlotte has been champion so many times over the course of her still pretty young career. “I don’t know. Charlotte?” seems to be the go to for the creative team when it comes to the women’s division. That’s not a knock on her at all, it’s more of an observation that WWE loves to hot potato their titles around when they don’t feel like giving someone a record breaking run to erase someone from their history. This wasn’t a barn burner of a match, but it felt like an oasis in this endless desert of boring. **½ 

Garrett: Charlotte is a natural heel, Bayley is a natural babyface so this match could only go well. This was mostly fine. Less boring than the last four matches but nothing remotely memorable. Charlotte is like 64 time Women’s Champion. Not sure who she goes onto next though, maybe the winner of the Natalya/Lacey Evans match on Raw. I’d say this clears the way for The Kabuki Warriors vs. Sasha and Bayley but both teams are heels now (I think) so maybe not. **1/2

Garrett, exasperated: Of course Gable couldn’t even go the night with his slip-on-a-banana peel win. He couldn’t even finish WWE Hell in a Cell with his bullshit, no credibility fluke victory. Corbin had to jump him backstage so you knew for sure he still sucked. Fuck this company. 

Vince McMahon, screaming: CALL HIM SLIGHTLY TALLER PETER DINKLAGE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Kelly: Garrett, we’re almost done. We’re almost there!

Garrett: burn it down

WWE Universal Championship: Hell in a Cell Match: “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt def. Seth Rollins © via DQ 

Kelly: What a trash fire this was. This is one of the many times that WWE saw something that they could have run with and decided to run it straight into the ground. I honestly don’t know what the official result of this match would be. Did Rollins get disqualified for being too violent? Did the Fiend lose because he wasn’t showing movement? Does any of it fucking matter? No, no it doesn’t. The Fiend easily could have had a decisive win here, they just did it Friday on Smackdown with Lesnar and Kofi. I guess the only answer for them was to have Seth beat up Wyatt for an eternity under obnoxious red lighting. This was seriously a visually offensive match. I hated looking at it. I hated everything about this. 

Guys, I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I don’t think I can force myself to watch these shows anymore. I watch and review these so that other people don’t have to, but I don’t think I can do it anymore. The fans were chanting for AEW while this shitshow played out and I sincerely hope that those people turn away and never look back. I hope that every person who chanted AEW never buys another ticket to a WWE show. Vote with your dollar and don’t give it to them anymore. I hope Vince shits his pants and falls down a hole for this 

Garrett: This is WWE’s fingerpoke of doom. Complete farce, a parody of WWE’s worst instincts. Legitimately one of the worst matches in the history of pro wrestling. Seriously, just go watch AEW on TNT. Or IMPACT on AXS. Or ROH on Sinclair. Or New Japan on New Japan World. Or your local indie. Or literally anything else. This company hates you. This company doesn’t care that it feeds you bullshit so long as you come back. Don’t come back. There is way too much great wrestling in 2019 for us to still watch this. It’s not a monopoly anymore. WWE doesn’t deserve the time of day. It sucks. Everything about it sucks. The wrestling is bad. The stories are bad. The promos are bad. The aesthetic is bad. The characters are bad. The writing is bad. The booking is bad. The commentary is bad. There are no redeeming qualities anymore. It just sucks. I bid WWE PPV reviews adieu. I can’t anymore. -*****