Thoughts After Hell in a Cell

Just catching up on WWE programming and finished watching Hell in a Cell from this past weekend. Thought I'd share some random thoughts with you regarding the event, the talent and the state of the company.

Tag Teams Stole the Show
My favorite match was definitely the opening match. Triple tag team title match with the Rhodes brothers, the Shield and the Usos. Absolutely insane. A combination of old ECW, Attitude-Era tag action and even some early days TNA back when the X Division meant something. Huge highlight was when Cody suplexed Roman Reigns to the outside onto everyone else from the top rope! Great match with a great finish, although part of me was really rooting for the Usos.

Cena's Return
ADR definitely made that match for me. That's not a criticism on Cena, as the context called for him to really just sell his arm injury the whole time. Slow paced, but entertaining. Was fun to hear the crowd cheer for Cena as his music hit, started the "We love Cena, Cena sucks" chant, then chant strictly about hating him, then more split chants and finally a standing ovation as he wins the gold. Will be interesting to see where he goes from here and I like the change-up of having him holding the World strap.

Main Event
Overall, it was a fun main event. Lots of gimmicky spots, but then again that's the whole Bryan/Orton storyline anyway. A couple of missed spots, like a superplex onto a pile of chairs, but only Bryan's foot actually hitting them. HBK with the inevitable "special ref heel turn" to secure the match for Orton. All in all, not that surprising but fun to watch.

A decent event, but to be honest I'm glad I didn't see it live. Was nice to skip some matches, as much as it pains me to say. There were some brutally quiet moments as well where the crowd just wasn't into it. For example, there were crickets for most of the Punk/Ryback match. That's not to say that the match was terrible, just that the Heyman storyline has been going on way too long. Same with Orton winning the belt. The world conspires to put the gold on Orton and keep it off Bryan, which is basically where we were 2 or 3 months ago.

Also, by keeping the title vacant for so long and bringing in a special guest referee for the main event makes me wonder what the ratings are like these days. I don't believe 90% of the wrestling blogs when they report ratings so who knows. A vacant title and special guest seems like it's more in favor of selling Pay Per Views than it is about TV ratings so maybe that's it.

Enjoying the programming so far, in general, but I'm hoping that a lot of these storylines are coming to an end now so we can get some fresh new bookings in soon.