Jules: Oh brother. Anyway... howdy-ho readerinos, and welcome to yet another edition of the 'The J-Team Presents' in its typically late to the party crashin' fashion. Oh yes, that rhyme was intentional, and NO, don't run away! Please, come back! The fun is just getting started as we have a devilish little PPV to review here in the month of October. Jimmy, if you will, tell the folks a little about it.
Jimmy: Recently, the WWE has taken it upon themselves to do away with the old boring bland PPVs to bring up a new concept each and every PPV. These themed events offer something a little different for every event so it doesn't seem like they're just going through the motions. Incidentally, Jules and I will start to introduce themes in our columns for every month for our "From the Vault" reviews. November is already set as a lock for Eddie Guerrero month since it was in that month that he passed. Moving back to this event however, WWE's latest concept of a Hell in a Cell PPV has come under heavy criticism from the IWC. Were those TNA Lockdown comparisons truly warranted? Find out as we review Hell In A Cell....
Jules: Who is this curtain jerker and what is he doing on the promotional poster for a big time PPV? Gosh, might as well put Yoshi Tatsu on there while you're at it.
Jimmy: I think that's that guy who use to ride in on that motorcycle. No wait, I think he's that guy that worships Satan and crucified Austin. But I thought this guy's supposedly dating Michelle McCool? No wait, now I'm getting him confused with the goth who wears mascara and purple gloves. Or was it gray gloves? Isn't he an MMA fighter that accompanied Manny Pacquiao to his Velázquez fight in 2005? Wait, that's impossible because he doesn't have that "Sara" tattoo on his neck. Who would be stupid enough to get an extremely painful tattoo on his neck and remove it a few short years later?
Jules: Anyway, enough malarkey already, let us proceed with the review shall we?
Charles Montgomery Punk (c) vs. The Undertaker in a Hell In a Cell for the World Heavyweight Championship
Jimmy: Poor CM Punk, just when you think...
Jules: Hold up. Let me cut you off right there Jimmy. Why is it that you ALWAYS have to go first with the match reviews? Can't I just ONCE get a chance to voice my opinion before you voice yours? I mean, I have seniority and all, plus I'm the better looking member of the J-Team, and it's my birthday to boot.
Jimmy: But I always...
Jules: Thanks Jim, I knew you'd understand. Okay, now if I had to come up with one word to describe this match, and this entire storyline with CM Punk and The Undertaker so far, it would have to be… disappointing. There was so much potential going into this program. Starting back at Summerslam, CM Punk had just reclaimed the World Heavyweight Title and was the hottest rising star in the business bar none, and The Undertaker had just made one of the more memorable comeback moments in recent wrestling history. At that point anyway, this feud looked like a surefire can’t miss kind of deal. But then, something went wrong. It didn’t go wrong in a catastrophic train wreck kind of way, it just kind of fizzled out due to a series of bizarre heat sucking moments such as the Montréal Screwjob finish at Breaking Point, the entire cartoonish ordeal with Taker kidnapping Teddy Long in order to get his finishing hold “Hell’s Gate” unbanned (which ultimately served no purpose as the move was not even applied ONCE during this match!) and also the questionable tactic of putting these two men in a one on one match, just a few weeks removed from their last big PPV match, and just a week or so away from this then upcoming one. Another thing I felt kind of diminished this was a lack of direction for Punk in his promos against the Dead Man. His straight edge anti-drug stuff worked like a charm against Jeff Hardy because the two men’s gimmicks played in perfect contrast to one another. The Undertaker has never played the character of someone who has used drugs heavily nor to my knowledge does he have a history in real life of such to exploit, so, there came a point, that the red hot CM Punk character who had been owning everyone with his promos, just got stale with his harping on and on about the same stuff he’d been about with Hardy. I liked early on in this program the direction Punk was going in by saying that Taker relied on smoke and mirrors and Punk was going to show him, that due to his straight edge lifestyle, he was not going to be tricked by such malarkey.
If they had continued down this path, and had Taker play his supernatural persona down a notch, and just be the big seven foot guy who does a lot of MMA strikes and submission holds, then this could’ve went somewhere interesting. Instead though, we got the same old tired threats that CM Punk would rest in peace, and that the Undertaker would “take his soul”… Yawn. Now the match itself, was fairly decent, of course. But by the standards of a Hell in the Cell match, I would have to say this was very anticlimactic. It didn’t have a significant moment of any kind that would lend itself to being memorable in anyway, nor was it given a lot of time, and to top that off, it was the friggin’ opener for Pete’s sake. This felt like a TV main event thrown on PPV. I kept waiting for it to rise to that next level and impress me, but alas, it never did. And then it just ended out of the blue with the Tombstone piledriver, and pinfall victory for Big Evil. Sigh…The Undertaker is traditionally a guy that has been used in the past in big level world title matches such as this one to “cement” main event caliber superstars. I say cement because, by the time you find yourself in a program with the Undertaker (unless you just happen to be some big lumbering hoss that is getting your customary fifteen minutes of fame) you are already well past the point of being established, and so, with a win over the Dead Man it is driven home in the fans minds that not only are you a credible main eventer, but you are also a legitimate force to be reckoned with and can thus stand toe to toe with anyone else on the roster be it Triple H, John Cena, or whoever. And at a time when Smackdown, and WWE in general for that matter is hurting for that next generation of Superstars to come forth, giving Punk the kind of defeat he got here tonight was, in my estimation, in every conceivable manner, a very poor decision. I'm not going to say it has hurt Punk to the point where he can't recover, although it certainly knocked his momentum down a great deal, and in no way whatsoever was this match, or this program for that matter, beneficial to him at all.
J Rating: J-J ⅔
Jimmy: I hear ya Jules, this was just the epitome of a disappointing match/feud. From what I hear, the reasoning behind putting this match first was to space out the HIAC events. While I understand that, the fact still remains that what previously main evented the last PPV had been put on first in the night (even before the Intercontinental bout) effectively making it look like these bookers set the PPV to "shuffle". Aside from that, the match did look like, as my partner mentioned, a TV main event taking place on a PPV, but in a cell. Damn that's a lot of commas. Needless to say this hardly impressed me, in any way, and I'm starting to lose hope in what was once the feud that pitted the "best big man in the business" against the "best big man-compatible worker" in the business. Some blood or brawling outside the cell or at the top or something would've made this better but sadly it didn't look like the two had much motivation to impress us as they were the curtain jerkers for the night. Shame shame.
J Rating: J-J ½
John Morrison (c) vs. Adolf Zeigler for the Intercontinental Championship
Jules: You know what. This just doesn't feel right. I feel like I'm sitting on the wrong side of the couch all of sudden.. Jimmy, by all means, please resume your position as lead off reviewer.
Jimmy: Todd Grisham mentioned that this match would have the pacing of a Formula 1 race and Formula 1 race it was for the first few minutes. Following a match with the star power Punk/Taker had was not an easy task however and the crowd reaction suffered as a result. There were many awkward lulls (no not lolz 4 u h4xx0Rz) at some sequences (notably during the restholds.) Aside from the crowd reaction, I found this match to be a nice display of mat wrestling and Morrison-like maneuvers which are always a welcome treat. The crowd reaction started picking up later in the match as John Morrison started getting his offense in though. After a devastating knee and a successfully executed Starship Pain, Morrison picked up the win in a match that took very long to get the ball rolling, crowd-wise.
J Rating: J-J-J ¼
Jules: Well, this certainly was the battle of physiques was it not? These two superstars, to absolutely no one’s surprise, came into this match looking like two mythical Greek gods preparing to do battle, one in purple sequin pants that belonged in the mid 1970s and the other in a pair of graffiti endorsed hot pants that look like they came straight out of the late 1980s. So you see, this was not just a battle of finely chiseled deities, but one of two completely different cultures and eras as well, each one as dorky if not a little dorkier than the other. I happened to notice that crowd silence too in a couple of places. It wasn’t a complete dead air situation though as you said, they got involved for the finish, and in the middle portion of the match were chanting “Mr. Ziggles” at Dolph. As stupid a nickname as that is, it has somehow caught on, which goes to prove the rule that in professional wrestling, it’s not always about being clever or quick witted even, but just keeping it simple enough so that even the dumbest person watching the show can understand what is going on. Do that, and you have a chance to create something that will catch on, regardless (almost) of anything else. I also noticed a faint “This is awesome” chant near the end of this match, which I’ll just take as a minority of fans trying to be extra nice I guess. This was a pretty good match I’d say. It wasn’t exactly the Dragon Gate display of speed that Grisham predicted, but it had its flashy moments thrown in between your basic old school wrestling spots. I think perhaps that might have effected the crowd reaction too somewhat as they may have been expecting these two guys to just go out there and steal the show with a real barn burning spot festival of a match, and instead, they basically just got an above average television match given a little extra time. I guess you could sort of call it a disappointment from that regard, but I’m sure these guys will have plenty of chances to put on better matches in the future. For whatever flaws one may perceive it had this was still perfectly acceptable wrestling to me.
J Rating: J-J-J ¼
Mickie James (c) vs. Alicia Fox for the Sparkly Vagina Belt
Jimmy: I have no idea when the RAW writers started pushing Alicia Fox but kudos to them for doing so. She's a very athletic girl and if you take that damn weave off of her, she's damn hot. This was an alright match (maybe a hair above the standard diva's match) as there were some really cool moves pulled off here and there. A beautiful Northern Lights Suplex and that siiiiiiiick DDT at the end immediately come to mind. Alicia Fox used her body to her advantage a lot in this match and I was reminded of how much I would love to take advantage of her body.... Ahem. Anyways I also liked watching Alicia wrap her legs around Mickie's body, sit on her face, as well as many other things... I'm getting quite off topic aren't I? The only thing the WWE needs to do now with Alicia is make her get rid of that damn weave.
J-Rating: J-J ⅓
Jules: Do you remember back when Layla debuted and she had that big curly afro? It reduced from her hotness so much and made her look like she just wandered out of the jungle to boot. Now she has straight hair and is the hottest woman on earth. Alicia Fox needs to follow suit, so that she could become then, the second hottest woman on earth, and then her and Layla can come over to my crib sometime and…. Oh, there was a match here I’m supposed to review? Huh… well, don’t blame me for not noticing, as nobody in the arena seemed to notice it either. These two divas may as well have been competing inside of a vacuum as there was not one tangible bit of sound during this entire match. It was pretty sad to watch actually, as both girls put in some pretty good work here, although there were a few awkward looking moments. Those moments were more than made up for by the hotness factor of the two gals involved though. Alicia seems to be patterning her mannerisms after Maryse which I cannot blame her for, but eventually she’s going to need to get her own act, and as much as I’ve bagged on Mickie lately, I cannot complain about her new low-rider jeans attire. The one thing I actually did not like about this match was the tornado DDT at the end. I was HORRIFIED by that move. I literally thought Alicia had snapped her neck right there. That was not a good “holy shit, what an amazing move!” moment to me. That was a “Dear Lord, is she still alive?” kind of deal. Maybe in a match where there was more crowd involvement it would’ve fit in better, kind of like that scary dive Taker took at Wrestlemania 25, but to me, to do a spot like that, that looked just so horrific to me that I called out an audible obscenity when I saw it, in a no heat match like this, is just taking a needless risk. In any event, the combination of the stick skinny and very lanky Alicia Fox and the shorter chunkier Mickie James, plus the law of gravity, just made for a very “sick”, as my partner Jimmy noted above, moment.
J Rating: J ¾
Christopher Jericho & The Big Show (c) vs. David Batista and Rey Mysterio Jr. for the Unified Tag Team Championships
Jimmy: I really really liked what I saw in this match. Starting out with Rey/Jericho was brilliant and the audience was reminded as to how awesome their feud was. A lot of back and forth action takes place and Batista gets the tag. Once he gets in, he does a nice job on Jericho before quickly tagging out. Shortly enough however Jericho makes it to Show who eyes Rey. The little pause between Rey and Bats with Rey saying "I got this" was pretty touching. Of course that might have just been because the bookers realized how slow the match would've been if Bats/Show would've gone against each other. The speed of Mysterio gets him at the early advantage before shortly getting his cranium squashed. Big Show palming Rey's head to drag him into the ring will be an image I will hold in my head for a long time. Sure enough it goes back and forth for a while with lots of chaos ensuing but eventually Rey Rey gets smashed in the mouth trying to go for his West Coast Pop. The sequences involving Rey were, as has been the case for the last few months, exciting. Batista and Show did a really good job of not slowing down this match too much so I'm giving props where they're due. The ending looked as though Rey Mysterio got knocked back into another month of inactivity. I quite enjoyed that spot.
J-Rating: J-J-J ½
Jules: One of the first thoughts that occurred to me when I saw Rey Mysterio returning wearing a sleeveless shirts backstage was that he looked considerably less bulky muscle wise than he did before his suspension, which, you can read into that whatever you want to. But that’s neither here nor there. What is significant is that all four of these guys went in and put in a really great effort in this match. Up to this point at least this was the best match of the night from both a psychological standpoint and in-ring wise as well. It even had good crowd involvement for the most part and a lot of really good spots like the one my partner mentioned plus a cool double stacker spear on the outside by Batista. Also whenever you get Chris Jericho and Rey Mysterio in a ring together, it’s really not even a question of whether or not you are going to get a quality result. Plus Big Show and Rey have learned how to really exploit their size differential very well over the years, and I personally always look forward to seeing the two of them working together. There was some stuff that was a bit clunky in the beginning from Batista, but not even he was a noticeable “third leg” in this match. Both Batista and Mysterio took turns playing the babyface in peril and both got to make some pretty decent comebacks. The match didn’t drag for a second was just about the perfect length I thought, not being too long or too short. All in all, this was a very enjoyable high energy level marquee match up between two established tag teams composed of viable main event level singles stars. It was so well done in fact that I would not mind seeing this match up again in the very near future as a main event on Smackdown.
J Rating: J-J-J ½
John Cena (c) vs. Randall Orton in a Hell in a Cell Match for the WWE Championship
Jimmy: What the hell is going on with the match order? We already had the SmackDown! main event early but now we're having the other main event halfway through the event. Now regardless of whether I like these two individuals, they draw a very large crowd reaction when in the ring together. There were Cena chants, Orton chants, and even Mike Chioda chants. There wasn't a lot of use of the cell from what I saw. And I still have much of the same complaints from the last string of matches (particularly the pacing.) I don't know, every time I see these two in the ring, I don't feel it. The news that they'll be going at it for an hour at the next PPV does not make me happy in the slightest but that's another column for another day I suppose. This was yet another "meh" effort to add to the Cena/Orton saga, which in theory should be a terrific battle between two of the brightest future WWE franchise players. However, in the ring these two have a severe lack of chemistry with one another. Plain and simple. Take any old match from Cena and Orton you've seen before (except for Breaking Point of course) and imagine that in a giant cell. That's pretty much what you got here.
J-Rating: J-J ½
Jules: Well, other than the I Quit match at Breaking Point I’ve been just about in agreement with Jimmy that I am more than tired of seeing these two men in the ring with one another. Randy Orton, I just have to note has some of the best in-ring facial expressions of any wrestler in the history of the game. But as Jimmy said, there was really no reason for this match to be contested inside a Hell in a Cell, and other than a couple spots involving weapons, and the no DQ aspect of the match little use was made of the structure. This was a match also that desperately needed some color , and no I’m not making a racist reference there, I’m talking about BLOOD. I know WWE is trying to go all PG on us of late, but seriously, three Hell in a Cell matches and not a single squirt of the gushy red goo? That just kills the gimmick right there, and makes it just as meaningless as any other random gimmick matches. Speaking of killing gimmicks, John Cena took the Punt of Death in this match from Orton, and then, inexplicably was back on Raw the next night no worse for wear. Yes, the same move that has sent such men as Triple H, HBK, Vince, Shane, and a dozen others to the hospital and put them out of action for months on end, has so little effect on Super Cena that he can shake off its effects in as little as one day. Other than that, this match also suffered from a pace that was as slow as a snail. I felt like I could’ve taken a nap somewhere in the middle of this ordeal and woken up well in time for the finish and not really missed anything of consequence. That, combined with the lack of blood, really hurt this match’s rating with me. I did like the finish with Cena being choked out and then getting kicked for the pinfall, but again, that whole thing was wasted in less than twenty-four hours from the moment it happened. I guess I can now go back to officially being sick of seeing these two men wrestle each other. The prospect of seeing this match drug out for an entire hour of my life sounds like something I really, really, really, really, don’t want to subject myself to. Sigh….
J Rating: J-J ¾
Drew McIntire vs. R-Truth in a "They Don't Really Care About Us" Match
Jimmy: Well if you thought the IC match suffered from crowd reaction, this match was as quiet as a bunch of ants pissing in their popcorn bags. I hope what I saw here wasn't all McIntire had to offer because honestly, I'm not impressed at all. Guys like Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, Low Ki, etc. could use that "personally signed by Vince McMahon" rub to get them over fairly quickly. All I see is Brian Kendrick's would-be father in that ring giving bland promos. The match contained the usual flippy mctwists from R-Truth and nothing overly noteworthy from McIntire bar a Double Arm between-the-crotch DDT and an extremely homosexual Heidenreich-esque date rape pin. Hopefully there's more to him than what I'm seeing on TV and in this match. And hopefully it doesn't involve anymore crotch moves. I feel like I need to take a shower now... *shudders* At least this wasn't an ECW D2D botchfest.
J-Rating: J ¼
Jules: This was the second match of the night to be thrown into the infamous “death spot” right after a main event world title match, and boy did it ever suffer from it. This made the divas match earlier that I said sounded like it was competed in a vacuum sound like Rock vs. Austin at a Wrestlemania by comparison. The only faint chant heard during the whole thing was one of ‘boring’… On top of that this match received very little time (which is understandable given the slot it was in) so there really wasn’t that much of an opportunity for either R Truth or Drew McIntyre to stand out here whatsoever. These two men would have probably literally have had to turn it up to eleven and hit about five million assorted whacky moves, dives, and other high spots on each other to even get a mild acknowledgment here from this audience. But this is WWE, so instead we got what was a below average television effort featuring the most non-dramatic exchange of punches that I’ve perhaps ever seen, and a match that produced enough negative heat to leave a cold spot in the ring for the rest of the night. Poor guys. Ross and Grisham mentioned how McMahon said that Drew Mcintyre reminded him of himself and how he was going to be a future world champion someday. I still can’t get over how strange that deal was. At the moment McIntyre shows some promise, but he is eons away from proving to me that he is anything even remotely close to warranting that kind of predictive accolade. Hopefully in the months and years to come he can prove me wrong though. As everybody with even a lick of sense knows that WWE needs all the new stars they can create at this point.
J Rating: J ¼
Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Jack Swagger vs. The Miz in a Triple Threat Match for the United States Championship
Jimmy: Well I thought this was a fun little match for what it was. Not really the usual spotfest we get from Kingston matches but there was a lot of interaction between Swagger and Miz. Pretty standard as far as triple threat matches go but something I noticed was the aggression in The Miz's offense. No, it wasn't like that bad kind of aggression where you stiff the hell out of people for no reason other than being a dick (see Hardkarma Holly), but it was that good kind of aggression that makes one look determined (see Chris Benoit, Umaga, John Cena, Kurt Angle, etc.) I'd like to see more out of this mean streak from The Miz (as well as in the ring overall since, as Xan pointed out earlier in the week, that's the next thing he needs to improve on for him to become a complete wrestler.) Anyways, this was a nice effort from all three just not as good as some of the other matches they've been involved in in recent months.
J-Rating: J-J-J
Jules: This match had everything you’ve come to expect from a modern WWE triple threat match. The pattern was followed without any kind of deviation in fact. Let’s see, you had a feigned alliance between two heels which lead to a double cross, the obligatory multi-man tower spot off the top rope with some new twist thrown in, (this time it was a cross body off an electric chair position) the series of roll up near falls near the end, followed naturally by one wrestler (normally a heel) hitting his finisher on his opponent only to be then knocked out cold by Kofi Kingston’s “Trouble in Paradise” spinny twisty kicky thingy so that Kofi could then pin the opponent who was hit with his other opponent’s finishing move instead of the guy he just knocked out cold himself. For what it was this match was alright I guess. Nothing was botched up and everything looked fairly crisp. The crowd was not dead during the match but they were not going bonkers either. The only minor complaint I really have is that now after the weeks and weeks of them building up the storyline with Jack Swagger and The Miz taking turns stealing the United States title on Monday Night Raw, not only was nothing done to pay off that angle here on the pay per view, but no mention was made of it whatsoever. Instead we got the normal routine from Michael Cole about how the Unites States title has been held by a dozen or more Hall of Famers including Ric Flair, Harley Race, Steve Austin, etc… I swear you could replace Cole on most nights with a recording of him taken from a past WWE video game and never even begin to notice that he wasn’t actually there.
J Rating: J-J ½
D-Generation X vs. Legacy in a Tornado Tag Hell in a Cell Match
Jimmy: From the get go, this was just action packed. Actually you could call it from before the get go since no one really entered the cell for the first several minutes of brawling between these two teams. Despite what I've said earlier, I think this was definitely a good thing to have this match go last. Maybe somehow, someway the two members of Legacy can actually become established on RAW. For the first several minutes of the actual match these guys looked awesome in their "divide and conquer" strategy. I really feel as though Randy Orton's proteges outshined him in the "torture your opponent" strategy. Of course a lot of that had to do with having HHH on the outside helplessly watching his friend get fed to the hounds so to speak. I could feel Shawn's psychological pain as I watched this match with every passing comment Legacy threw at him like "your partner's left you" and "this is pitiful from the great Shawn Michaels." I could feel his physical pain as I watched him get taunted, flogged, beaten, and sacrificed to Legacy. On a personal level, it reminds me of something else that I relate to that's rooted deep into my beliefs and that also made this special. By having a personal connection to the match, I was given a reason (as if I didn't already have) enough to root for Shawn Michaels. It was great to see HHH come back and put the shoe on the other foot, to make Legacy really suffer through the end. The ending with the Sweet Chin Music/Sledgehammer combo was just plain sweet. This was THE best chapter of what's been nothing short of a fantastic feud for all involved. I can't really pick out any complaints for this match at all. It wasn't completely predictable and there was nothing but action from even before the start til after the finish. Was it MOTY material? From a tag team standpoint, I say absolutely as this was probably the best tag team match I've seen from WWE all year. No it won't trump Undertaker/Michaels from Wrestlemania and I'm debating whether this match was better than the Mask vs. Title Jericho/Rey match (leaning towards close but no cigar), but it definitely will be entering that "greatest hits" list of matches for 2009.
J-Rating: J-J-J-J-J!
Jules: I must say that I certainly did not expect this match to be the main event. If anything this was the match I was expecting to see stuffed somewhere in the middle of the show just like it has been in the past two pay per views on which it was featured, but in the end, this was probably the best choice for a match to end the show realistically. I’d easily call this the match of the night even if I don’t go quite as far in singing its praises as Jimmy has obviously done. At first I was kind of critical of the handicap set-up because, to my way of understanding the rules of wrestling anyway, for a regular match to begin, all the participants of said match must be in the ring at the same time, but here you had Rhodes and Dibiase basically lock Hunter outside so they could double team Shawn, and the referee acted like he had no choice but to just go along with it. I don’t know, it just raised a red flag with me I guess. But in the end, I will say that they made the right decision in how to structure this match as everything paid off with mucho dividends. Anytime you have Shawn Michaels giving a seminar on how to properly sell getting beat up for the majority of a match, ten times out of ten, it’s going to be good. The bit with the bolt cutters actually caught me off guard as at first I thought for sure HHH was going to come back with a sledgehammer and just beat the door down, which I thought would’ve made for a cooler visual, but of course would also have necessitated a different finish for the match than the excellent one they came up with that played off of Legacy’s initial divide and conquer strategy. Speaking of that though, I am absolutely convinced that Triple H not only went backstage during this match to get that boltcutter, but that he took a shower, got dressed, drove to Ace Hardware, dilly dallied around the riding lawnmower section for a while and perhaps bought a soda, then purchased a brand new bolt cutter, drove back to the arena, signed a few autographs outside, undressed, put his wrestling gear back on, and then came out to save Shawn. Seriously, he was gone FOREVER. Back on the match though, among the spots I really liked here was HBK’s big elbow drop onto Cody who had a steel chair wrapped around his neck. That looked sick, in a good way, and of course the aforementioned finish involving the superkick/sledgehammer combo. Again, I didn’t love this quite as much as Jimmy did, but I still liked it a lot nonetheless.
J Rating: J-J-J-J
Things We Learned While Watching Hell In A Cell
Jimmy: When I was a young kid, I used to watch a lot of Futurama. In episode 9 of season 1, Leela made the comment "Who would've thought that Hell would really exist? And that it would be in New Jersey?" Here we are a full decade later after that episode hit the airwaves and WWE held a PPV event revolving around the Hell in A Cell match in, you guessed it, New Jersey.
I learned that you should never use a slot machine to determine which matches should go on at which time because you can end up with Drew McIntire vs. R-Truth as your SmackDown! main event. DX vs. Legacy as the RAW main event was luck of the draw I suppose but that United States Championship bout came eerily close to stealing that spot away.
I learned, thanks to Michael Cole, that despite DX returning as recently as two months ago and still engaging in their first feud since returning, that there have been rumors floating around that the group would have seen their demise at this very PPV. Well, after believing those un-sourced reports and watching the match, Michael Cole can now confirm that those rumors have been greatly exaggerated.
I also learned that our adoring fans can send us an email for suggestions on our next themed month (much like WWE does when wanting to rename or come up with an event!) Want to see a cruiserweight month? Maybe a Smackdown Six month? Screw WWE month? Send it to the email addresses at the bottom of the screen.
Jules:*wipes cake and ice cream off my face* I learned that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a year older than yours truly. As you just learned from Jimbo, I am now 24 years in age, and I grew up collecting Ninja Turtle action figures so I am happy to learn that we are so close in age. Sadly I will not be seeing the new movie, as to me, the original trilogy and the original cartoon series are the only material whose existence I will acknowledge, that and the fact that, in the interest of losing my virginity sometime before I turned thirty, I had to give up my action figure collection shortly after I left elementary school.
I learned that the Hell in the Cell cage possess mystical powers that makes ordinary moves done in the middle of the ring hurt that much more. As at one point during the Orton vs. Cena match, an electric chair move was performed, not involving the cell structure in any way, but still Michael Cole felt the need to emphasize that we had just witnessed an electric chair inside Hell in a Cell!
I learned that JR has a nickname, which happens to be, JR. Anyone else just waiting for the day when the old Boomer Sooner just snaps and does a beat down on that nincompoop Todd Grisham?
Overall Rating:
Jimmy: Thanks to my math skills that don't really take much of anything into account, I can now confirm that this PPV scored a 45 J's out of a possible 80. On it's own that is an abysmal 56% but on our curved scale its grade is brought up a notch to 63%. This makes it "worth a watch" but I would've gone out and said that this was a good event with a strong undercard (bar Truth/McIntire) but a 1 for 3 upper card. I guess my scale is detecting that the big title matches didn't quite deliver and, in that sense, it might not have been worth the money you spent to see those Hell in a Cell bouts. Or of course the greatness of the last match set the curve too high and made the rest of the card look bad in comparison. That's math for ya. If you forgot what our other events scored, here's a quick reminder:
Extreme Rules: C+ 63%; 39/62(Curved scale) The Bash: D 52%; 37.5/70(Curved scale) Night of Champions: B 69%; 43.25/62(Curved scale) Summerslam: B 69%; 40/58(Curved scale with 7 matches counted) DGUSA: Enter the Dragon: A+ 80%; 40/50(Non-curved scale with 5 matches only) Breaking Point: C 58%; 36/62(Curved scale with 7 matches counted) Hell In A Cell: C+ 63%; 45/70(Curved scale)
Any parting words until our next review?
Jules: Well, Jimmy has the mathematics department covered brilliantly once again, now for my amateur opinion, even though there were two world title changes on this pay per view, this was in no ways, perhaps other than the main event, a memorable event. Perhaps it is because both Taker and Orton have held world titles a billion times collectively, or that both championships have changed hands so much in the past year that it's starting to feel like 1999 all over again, that it just lacked any real punch in seeing either of them win their respective belts, and honestly, on a show with two world title changes, you'd expect a Wrestlemania caliber event to justify something of that magnitude going down in the first place. But what we got here was basically a gimmicked up retread of the last three or four WWE PPVs. I wouldn't say it was a horrible event by any means, but there are a million other shows I'd recommend one go out of their way to see before they consider this one. Well, that just about covers it. Thank you all for reading on behalf of Jimmy and myself, and we'll see you again next time for another extremely late edition of what will most likely be another lackluster WWE PPV production.
Email Jules at pulp_wrestling@yahoo.com
Email Jimmy at j4m354@gmail.com
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