WWE Hell in a Cell 2016 - Raw PPV

WWE are going HIAC mad! Three HIAC matches announced, including the first ever womens HIAC match. Awesome.

WWE have released the official promotional poster for their annual Hell In A Cell pay-per-view, featuring Sasha and Charlotte. It looks fucking ridiculous - did they really need to photoshop the women that badly? Charlotte looks like a mannequin.

Eric Bischoff on the womens HIAC match:

I don’t like it at all. I don’t like it. The standard for Hell in a Cell is pretty high. It physically is what it is. It’s a hardcore match. It’s an extreme match. It’s all of the above and then some. I’ve talked before about expectations and managing expectations with the audience. Sometimes you can do such a great job building something up that you forgot to remember that you also have to deliver. I am not taking anything away from either of those athletes that happen to be women. I am suggesting that the audience may not necessarily want to see that type of entertainment and that type of match out of that type of an athlete. That’s just my opinion.

I'm sure they'll be fine. People wanted women to be treated equally, and they've shown that they can put on great matches. So why not let them wrestle in the same kinds of matches that the guys have been doing for years? You don't know how it's going to work until you try it. I reckon they'll be fine though.

That's a long winded way for Bischoff to say "they can't do it cos their women".

He's entitled to his opinion, like every one else. I'd just as much reserve judgement until after. But considering the matches those two have had recently, this one is gonna be anything but a car wreck.

What should be the final match has now been added - a second womens match.

Eric Bischoff on the womens HIAC match:

I don’t like it at all. I don’t like it. The standard for Hell in a Cell is pretty high. It physically is what it is. It’s a hardcore match. It’s an extreme match. It’s all of the above and then some. I’ve talked before about expectations and managing expectations with the audience. Sometimes you can do such a great job building something up that you forgot to remember that you also have to deliver. I am not taking anything away from either of those athletes that happen to be women. I am suggesting that the audience may not necessarily want to see that type of entertainment and that type of match out of that type of an athlete. That’s just my opinion.

I'm sure they'll be fine. People wanted women to be treated equally, and they've shown that they can put on great matches. So why not let them wrestle in the same kinds of matches that the guys have been doing for years? You don't know how it's going to work until you try it. I reckon they'll be fine though.

Seems like a very old school way of looking at it. That women can't do this type of stuff. We've never seen them get all the opportunities to do things like this until recently here in America. I think they'll be do a good job. I don't really get excited for any Hell in a Cell matches now, because of the PG aspect and no blood. I wish we could go back 12 years and do this with the women and see what they really can do.

Anyone else think that WWE are dropping the ball with not announcing what will be the main event for this PPV? If it's not the womens match then fair enough, but if they are going to main event it, it seems like something that should really be announced as it's a huge historic match for the women. Not only first HIAC match, but also main eventing a PPV. It actually makes me hope that they don't main event as that would mean that they have completely played it down if they do, with Foley retracting his statement and Vince deleting his Tweet about it. If they main event, it should have been used as a key selling point for the PPV.

Personally, I'm only interested in 3 matches on this card. Universal, womens and cruiserweight title matches. Everything else I can miss and not be sad. Hoping that one of those matches will surprise me though to keep me more entertained than I'm expecting.

Yeah, I don't think the women are main eventing for that exact reason: if they were going to, they would have announced the fuck out of it.

After the fact I believe that they did not announce it as the main event because then both the fans and the workers would add unnecessary expectations to the match

Either way, it was a good show. It seems Reigns/Rusev and Owens/Rollins not getting the main event lit a fire under their asses, cos they both delivered good Cell matches. The womens match was also good, even if the ending was a bit anti-climactic.

I'd like to share some thoughts on the main event. The first being this: it's ridiculous that the women's match wasn't billed A being the main event. That's a big deal, whether it's happened on PPV before or not... to my knowledge, it hasn't, but I was totally out of the loop for a long time. Okay, but was the match built up? Yes. Awkwardly. Especially Mick Foley's flip-flopping in his reactions to it. On to the match...

The Women's Championship match was incredibly awkward. Others might disagree, but I thought it was a clunky and failed spot-fest. They wrecked people's interest with the ridiculously over-blown "can't compete" introduction, which simultaneously excused away any awkward pacing and such. I'm to believe that a woman who couldn't stand for 5 minutes can get up and jump off of cages? Beyond that, as noted, it was a failed spot-fest.  I can't remember any actual practical/non-weapon-related moves during the match, other than the finish, a monkey flip and about half of the one million knee strikes by Sasha. Everything else involved weapons and/or environmental maneuvers. All told, the biggest issue coming from this all, was PACING. Damn, the pacing was awkward. It became a thing where I was constantly just waiting for someone to reach under the ring. Very dull ending, too, even if both women technically walk away looking strong. Sasha in particular, I mean... how can she not after that getting back into it after that opening stunt? A stunt I disliked, by the way. Good spot? Sure. But it ultimately wasted a lot of time and seemed to be done as a cop-out so that the match could be shorter and slightly less bump-heavy than it might have otherwise been. I dunno... felt like hey played it pretty safe with the women, while at the same time trying to smoke-and-mirrors us into thinking it was brutal. I'm probably making it sound worse than it was, somewhat, but I was disappointed nonetheless. Too much wasted time, too many unsatisfying/awkward spots.

On a general note, I'm not familiar with how this PPV normally goes, but yeah... I didn't see anything to fuss about. Mind, the Raw brand itself isn't anything to fuss about. Utterly ill-thought-out brand split, come to think of it. The two shows are so imbalanced,, in both roster/how it's used (definitely) and overall show quality, to what little I've seen (I rarely get to see Smackdown, though)... it's just not a justifiable split.

Last edited by Pilgrim Paige (Mon-31-Oct-2016 15:09:15)

The Universal title match was by far the best. Didn't mind the interruption by Jericho as it was well done and he's easily one of the best people in WWE right now.

Was disappointed with the Cruiserweight Title match. Not with the result as Kendrick is awesome, but the match quality wasn't as good as the others we've seen from them. Seemed to go a bit short as well. Was a tough spot for them though as they did have to follow the match of the night.

The womens match. Still don't know why they didn't advertise that as the main event. Ending was a bit odd, but thought they did well enough over all. Had a good laugh at the EMT's at the beginning of the match though... how hard is it to get a bloody neck brace on? They couldn't have looked more incompetent if they tried. If she had a legit neck injury she'd be fucked. I thought it was a good attack though to start with, but man was it a waste of time from then until the match officially started. That's probably my only real negative with the match. They tried, it didn't go badly, we discovered that Sasha is far too light to go through a table properly unless she's actually being slammed, a surprise victory as I didn't expect Sasha to lose the belt again so soon and they took some bumps that the women usually wouldn't take. Wasn't match of the night, but was far, far from the worst of the night.