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Hell in a Cell 2017


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I haven't seen the show yet - and likely won't have the time to watch it at all until this weekend - so I can't really comment on how the Sami turn came across on television or anything. But I will say this - I really dug the dynamic of their team back in the day. The idea of Kevin as the bigger, bullying older brother, with Sami playing the abused and subservient younger brother just tagging along to fit in, was always tremendous.

Sami seems to have suffered a lot since making the move to the main roster. No surprise there, but this could certainly serve as a strategy to regenerate some of his sympathy in the long haul. Watching him get abused, ordered around, and manipulated by Owens is exactly the sort of story that could bring things back full circle.

 

I loved the story they told with these guys back in NXT. I think it was an absolutely awesome way to bring Owens on board and continue the saga of Sami Zayn's redemption arc with the NXT Championship. For that time and place, it was picture perfect & precisely what was needed. And, while I see a lot of people saying this seems like a step back, I actually don't mind it. Perhaps it's a half-step forward at best, but I do believe it's a solid shot at "resetting" both Owens and Zayn. And their chemistry has always been fantastic, so I can think of far worse scenarios for both guys.

 

Still waiting to see what it looks like once it all shakes out a bit, but yeah. My initial impression is that I'll have no problem with letting this one play out.

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I didn't watch the whole show, but New-Usos was fantastic, easily the best match of their feud. The U.S. title match was boring when it was just Tye-Corbin but A.J. saved the day in that final seven-minute stretch. WWE Championship match was another mediocre Jinder-dominated match. Main event ran too long but I thought it was very good with a legitimately awesome ending.

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- New Day v Usos was brilliant. I responded emotionally to this in a way I was completely not expecting to. The Usos in general were great, but this match was made by Xavier, who was outstanding in his role of taking the most humiliating punishment and garnering some sympathy; and Big E who seemed to finally have tapped into an ability to actually be serious, even if it didn't last the entire match.

- Skipped Orton/Rusev. Nothing could force me to watch a Randy match at this point.

- US Triple Threat was pretty bland whenever AJ wasn't involved. Whoever mentioned his mad bumping was on the money. He worked his ass off here to make Corbin look good. I didn't care about the finish, and it looks like nobody else did either.

- Liked Charlotte/Natalya. Solid work, some great selling of the leg by Charlotte. Still had to suffer through her moonsault to the outside, which for my money is higher than Rollins' suicide dives as the least effective looking aerial move. Don't mind the DQ finish, even if heel DQ finishes aren't as cool as face versions. Do they even do face DQ finishes any more?

- Skipped the WWE title match and Ziggler/Roode.

- From a purist point of view I don't like the idea of Shane wrestling and I vehemently hated both his Taker and AJ matches. This one, didn't mind it so much. It played to Owens' strengths where he could just go around and fling insults but the action wasn't enough to keep me focused on my screen the whole time. Predictable bump by Owens and an identical bump by Shane from his Taker match. More interested in the Zayn/Owens dynamic for the future than how they executed the "heel" turn here. Was WAY too long at 39 minutes.

 

For something that looked absolutely terrible on paper they surely over delivered.

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I'll definitely add that, as someone who was very vehemently opposed to the whole idea of a Zayn heel turn, I thought the execution was really good, with 100% of the credit going to Zayn. His facial expression was just the perfect mix of self-doubt/self-hatred/self-surprise (?) to get it over that his actions were about loyalty, misplaced or not, and not just the usual "You fans rejected me - so now I reject you!" bullshit they use for every other heel turn.

 

I also love what someone posted about using this to make him even more sympathetic in the long run.

 

I do still stand by my initial fear, though, that, in 6 months, the character development will be forgotten and Zayn will just be your average heel, which is where so many talented guys have gotten stuck in the past.

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People have talked a lot in the past decade or so that they do too many HIAC matches and it devalues the gimmick. But if they hadn't done that, we would have never gotten classic cell matches for secondary belts like Sasha/Charlotte and Usos/New Day.

 

So actually, it's good. That's my hot take.

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Fears about Sami are certainly warranted, but this is probably his best chance considering WWE is currently has completely forgotten how to properly book babyfaces,

 

Whatever ends up happening to him as a heel it can't be worse than annoying neurotic babyface Sami.

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People have talked a lot in the past decade or so that they do too many HIAC matches and it devalues the gimmick. But if they hadn't done that, we would have never gotten classic cell matches for secondary belts like Sasha/Charlotte and Usos/New Day.

 

 

The first four HIAC matches were not for any belt and didn't main event their respective cards, so this isn't true. You can still keep the stipulation for only the most intense feuds and have cell matches for secondary belts if that's how the cards fall.

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Kevin Owens is probably the one guy on the roster I don't have a problem with Shane being able to go toe to toe with, simply because Shane looks like he'd beat the shit out of Owens in a real fight. Shane is bigger than Owens, and he's in better shape.

Shane looks like he's going to have a heart attack every time he's active for two minutes. He's not in better shape than KO.
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Yeah, the last few Shane matches my fear wasn't "he's going to die from falling of the cage" but more "he's going to die from a heart attack from moving more than a few minutes at a time". He gets so red even Brock would be all "damn, bro that doesn't look good".

 

Combined with his Mike Rotunda-like sweating just doing a promo on most Smackdowns, it would almost be enough for one to suspect he might be hitting the Columbian slopes.

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Kevin Owens is probably the one guy on the roster I don't have a problem with Shane being able to go toe to toe with, simply because Shane looks like he'd beat the shit out of Owens in a real fight. Shane is bigger than Owens, and he's in better shape.

Shane looks like he's going to have a heart attack every time he's active for two minutes. He's not in better shape than KO.

 

 

So does Brock, so it's normalized for WWE top guys

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