The opening match Sunday night featured Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin defeating The Hype Bros in a fast-paced, electrifying contest.Zack Ryder and Mojo Rawley controlled the pace of the match, working over the smaller Gable. A big moonsault allowed the Olympian to make the hot tag to Benjamin and the action broke down.At one point, with Gable disposed of at ringside, it looked like Ryder and Rawley were on their way to victory. They could not execute The Hype Ryder, though, and Benjamin answered with Paydirt to Ryder. The finisher, which had won the former intercontinental and United States champion so many matches in the past, was broken up by Rawley.The babyfaces deposited the 2017 Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal winner on the arena floor and turned their attention to Ryder, who they pinned following their double-team finisher.The contest was well-structured, featured good and dramatic near-falls late and saw the right team go over.Especially considering who would limp out of the tag team title match with the gold around their waists and a sudden need for opposition.
The pay-per-view event itself kicked off with what may be the main roster Match of the Year for 2017 as The New Day defended the SmackDown Tag Team Championships against The Usos in an epic of massive proportions.The two teams spent four months feuding with each other, every match growing increasingly more violent and hard-hitting. Sunday night, the twin Usos, Xavier Woods and Big E delivered a barbaric match that was satisfyingly brutal without the need for bloodshed.The teams utilized a kendo stick, one of wrestling's most cliched weapons, and got it over with the masses through creative and never-before-seen spots. There were musical instruments utilized as weapons, Jey Uso was condemned to his own, person kendo stick prison and Woods endured tremendous pain as he was assaulted while handcuffed and unable to protect his torso.
Big E exploded back into the match, raining down on his opponents with furious rage and anger but soon found himself the victim of a two-on-one beating.And that is where the match thrived: the little stories peppered throughout. Whether it was Woods' resiliency, Big E's anger or The Usos proving their greatness as a team when there is not a third member of New Day around to stop them, the match was filled with some narrative for fans to sink their teeth into.By the time Jimmy and Jey won the titles for the fifth time in their careers, fans were left exhausted and enthralled, absolutely certain they had just witnessed one of the best matches WWE has provided all year and one of the most creative Hell in a Cell bouts of all time.
The match between Randy Orton and Rusev was, to put it lightly, not the most anticipated match on the Hell in a Cell card. In fact, unless you are a big fan of either Superstar, you may have been hard-pressed to remember it was even part of the show.Going on second, forced to follow the unforgettable match between The New Day and The Usos, the talented workers had the same solid match fans have seen from them before, in which The Bulgarian Brute pummeled Orton throughout and nearly even upset The Viper with an Accolade from out of nowhere.As is the case in every match the third-generation star wrestlers, though, Orton slithered out and delivered an RKO to put an end to Rusev's dreams of winning a high-profile pay-per-view match.A nondescript match fans are not likely to have remembered by the time the show wrapped up some three hours later, the contest was merely there, an excuse for both guys to be on the show without any real rhyme or reason for why it had to happen in the first place.
The addition to Tye Dillinger to the United States Championship match felt too much like a booking decision made not to get The Perfect 10 over as a credible contender to the title but, rather, to prevent AJ Styles from taking the pinfall.Baron Corbin captured his first championship Sunday night, defeating Dillinger and Styles in a Triple Threat match that featured fun spots, strong work from all three men involved and a controversial finish.Late in the match, Styles soared through the air and blasted his fellow babyface Dillinger with the Phenomenal Forearm. Before he could make the pin and leave Detroit with his title, though, Corbin interjected himself and disposed of Styles.From there, he covered The Perfect 10's lifeless body and earned championship gold for the first time in his wrestling career.The spots were typical of a Triple Threat match, with one man powdering to the arena floor, thus leaving the other two Superstars to get their stuff in. Still, though, it captivated the audience and had them biting on several of the late nearfalls.Helped by a red-hot crowd, the match exceeded expectations.
Charlotte Flair and Natalya have had some of the best wrestling matches of the last five years, regardless of gender. Their mat skills, attention to detail and physical styles have come together to make entertaining and believable matches that oftentimes have them looking better than they did going into the bouts.Sunday night, though, was a match not at all concerned with living up to expectations.Rather, Sunday's match for the SmackDown Women's Championship was about writing the first chapter of a longer story.Natalya targeted the leg of her opponent throughout the match, leaving the No. 1 contender screaming in pain. Toughing it out, just as her father Ric had so many times over the course of his Hall of Fame career, Charlotte began rolling late.
She even found it within herself to be able to climb to the top rope and launch herself off with a moonsault that caught Natalya on the arena floor.The champion, sensing her title may be in jeopardy, grabbed hold of a steel chair and blasted the injured knee of her challenger, drawing a disqualification. The attack on the injured joint continued, leaving Charlotte writhing in pain and screaming the severity of the assault.As a match, it was average. As an angle, it potentially setup months of stories to be told. Sometimes, the latter outweighs the former in significance.
There will be those who criticize the match WWE Championship match between Shinsuke Nakamura and Jinder Mahal Sunday night, mostly because they are pissed off over who left Little Ceasar's Arena with the title around their waist.That is perfectly fine. It is ok to have a proverbial horse in the race and want a specific Superstar to win and capture titles.With that said, the booking behind the match was smarter than anyone will give WWE credit for and sets the stage for yet another rematch between the devious champion and a No. 1 contender repeatedly screwed over by a strong numbers disadvantage.Even after banishing The Singh Brothers to the backstage area, the referee became distracted by their pleas to remain at ringside, preventing him from making a timely count on an unconscious Mahal.From there, The Maharaja seized an opening and pinned Nakamura following his trademark Khallas finisher.
The creative team is clearly telling a story in which Nakamura will have to dispatch of Sunil and Samir if he wants to capture the title that has eluded him thus far. With every cheap victory or controversial win, Mahal's status as a true main event grows.Not unlike John Bradshaw Layfield, who also came from obscurity to win the title, then relied heavily on outside interference and chicanery to retain it.The match will not be confused with a Match of the Year candidate by any means, nor was it particularly electrifying, but it was not the complete DUD some will make it out to be out of some blind hatred for Mahal's continued reign.
With the pay-per-view event running long, and anticipation for the night's main event reaching a boiling point, Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler were handed the unenviable task of going on between that Hell in a Cell match and the WWE Championship bout.A crowd growing restless and impatient.Roode and Ziggler wrestled a solid, if unspectacular match. Their styles did not necessarily mesh as well as one may have hoped for, but that may have to do with the fact that each excels in a different role than what they are currently playing.Roode is better as a heel who controls the match, works his opponent over and brashly plays to the crowd. Ziggler is a better babyface than a villain, a Superstar who fights from underneath and fires off an energetic comeback that thrills fans and keeps them guessing as to whether or not he will finally win the big one.They have been shoehorned into the roles they currently are in and the result is a match that does not quite live up to their talents.That Roode won the match by countering a rollup and grabbing the tights is a nice callback to his "anything to win" mentality as a villain but made little sense within the context of the story they were telling.
Whoever decided Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens needed 32 minutes for their Hell in a Cell should immediately have all booking decisions ripped away from them. The match, very good and incredibly dramatic in spots, overstayed its welcome by five-to-seven minutes and left the competitors stumbling around the cell roof for far too long.The entire sequence that took place atop the steel structure may have had fans biting their nails and fending off anxiety early but eventually left them wondering if the Superstars were ever going to get to the high spot so many fans expected out of them.Owens bumped off the side of the cage and through the announce table and fans cheered.Then, McMahon laid the prone body of his opponent across the other announce table, climbed the cage and leaped off, crashing through the table after Sami Zayn inexplicably pulled Owens to safety.The brutality of the match, coupled with the insane spots, the undeniable drama they manufactured and the huge twist at the end was more than enough to earn it a higher-end rating. Shaving off a few unnecessary minutes would have helped it achieve classic status rather than being recognized as a really good Hell in a Cell match.
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