Wrestling Review: WWE Hell in a Cell (2019)

See you in hell! The WWE sets up the sinister structure in the Golden 1 Centre in Sacramento, California, as it presents the 2019 edition of Hell in a Cell. Seth Rollins will face his nightmares in side the devil’s playground, as he faces off against “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt for the WWE Universal Championship. All bets are off for this match, as The Fiend looks to become the top champion of the Raw brand in only his second ever match. For the women of the WWE, things are no easier: Becky Lynch will defend her Raw Women’s Championship against long time friend-cum-rival Sasha Banks, also inside the steel structure. On the SmackDown side, Bayley will defend her women’s title against Charlotte Flair, the latter of whom is seeking her tenth championship in the WWE. THe final announced match will see Roman Reigns team with Daniel Bryan to face the reunited, no longer named team of Erick Rowan and Luke Harper in a brutal tornado tag team match. All of this and much more at WWE Hell in a Cell.

+ Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns vs Erick Rowan & Luke Harper (Tornado Tag Team Match): this went on a bit long, and was perhaps a little bit self-indulgent, but still a lot of fun. Luke Harper is so damned good, and I am really happy that he is back, and even more so in a relatively main story. There were a few good weapon/hardcore moments in this, but overall it was relatively standard. Truth be told, I hated the post match, but whatever, the match was good
+ Becky Lynch (c) vs Sasha Banks (WWE Raw Women’s Championship Hell in a Cell Match): this was really good, which I didn’t expect considering Sasha was involved. Becky has lost so much momentum, especially considering the previous match these two had at Clash of Champions. Sasha came across as a real jerk, and Becky looked like a real underdog hero, and this started the show off well

– Seth Rollins (c) vs “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt (WWE Universal Championship Hell in a Cell Match): without even mentioning the stupid lighting used, to call this the worst Hell in a Cell match would be missing the mark worse than this match did. Horrendous doesn’t even begin to describe it
– Bayley (c) vs Charlotte Flair (WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship): absolute garbage, but at least a somewhat passable attempt at a match. I know that Charlotte has a famous last name, and I know that Bayley is the recent bad guy, but why for the love of god are these two fighting when there are a dozen other, different or unique (but not necessarily “better”) women chasing that ridiculous 24/7 Championship
– King Corbin vs Chad “Shorty” Gable: Gable needs to run as far away from the WWE as he can. I say this a lot for people like Harper, Cesaro and Drew Gulak, but Gable in particular could be a HUGE star almost anywhere else in the world. It is interesting that the WWE have not beat us over the head that ‘Baron’ is a title just like ‘King’ is
– The OC (AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson) vs The Viking Raiders (Eric & Ivar) & Braun Strowman: this was not much of a match, and seemingly entirely a set up for the post-match shenanigans. Raw has been hammering in that The OC and the Viking Raiders have history, but truthfully I don’t remember these two teams actually facing each other in NJPW, at least not often – War Machine were IWGP Tag Champions in 2017, when Gallows/Anderson were already back in WWE
– Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross (c) vs Kabuki Warriors (Asuka & Kairi Sane) (WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships): this was really boring, up until a very interesting ending. Cross and Asuka had one of the best women’s matches in years back on NXT (that Last Woman Standing match, look it up), and it is almost unbelievable that Kairi Sane has been pinned twice by Alexa Bliss on the main roster before this match
– Randy Orton vs Ali: Ali is really good, and Orton is fantastic, and I’d probably enjoy to see them some more. One moment at the end was maximum hype (and taken almost directly from an AEW spot), but then it all fell into the same sort of stuff you’d expect. I wanted to like this, but it just felt so standard
– Lacey Evans vs Natalya: there was nothing more here than what we’ve seen on Raw in recent weeks, and I won’t be surprised if we see it all again tomorrow

Should you watch this event: Every single match on this show was worse than the one before it. Becky/Sasha was great, and then the tornado tag was something a little bit different between two great guys, one good guy and one okay guy, and then it was all downhill. Absolutely do not waste your time outside of the Becky/Sasha match.