The big event in the WWE last week was the heavily hyped “Hell in a Cell” pay-per-view, in particular, the cage match main event for the Universal title which had the big dog, Roman Reigns, defending his title against the one man wrecking crew, Braun Strowman.
I’m a fan of both of them and was anticipating an epic clash which would either cement Reigns’ status as the Universal champion (something which has been somewhat up in the air since his somewhat dubious title win at SummerSlam against Brock Lesnar) or, perhaps, would see Strowman, who’s been on the threshold of becoming a champion for quite a while, finally win the belt. Either way, I figured the outcome would solidify the magnitude of the Uni title and give the winner a shot in the arm.
That unfortunately didn’t prove to be the case though, as the string pullers in the WWE chose to orchestrate one of those overly complicated and ill-conceived outcomes, which did nothing for the propriety of the Universal title, nor did it do anything for Roman or Brawn, either – both of whom have been struggling to be taken seriously, themselves, as modern day successors to guys like the Rock, Hogan, Bruno, Stone Cold, the Hitman and Andre the Giant.
In case you missed it, after Roman and Braun had a pretty decent match, for no discernible reason, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre came out and endeavored to interfere, which resulted in Roman’s Shield cohorts, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, coming to the rescue. Those four then engaged in a long, drawn out brawl outside and on top of the cage, while Roman and Brawn appeared to be napping inside the cage, which was almost comical, but made no sense.
Subsequent to that, with Dolph & Drew and Seth and Dean still engaged in their futile fourway and Roman and Braun still stuck in neutral, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman meandered out to the ring and the Beast almost nonchalantly removed the door from the supposedly impenetrable cage and put the boots to Reigns and Strowman, who had been touted as dominant forces, but, after the smoke had cleared, looked like marginal jabroneys.
I’m not really sure what the ostensible rationale for that dubious debacle was, as it sure as hell didn’t do anything for either Roman or Braun, nor did it do much for Rollins, Ambrose, Ziggler or McIntyre – all of whom were essentially wasted.
As for Lesnar, even though he laid waste to Strowman and Reigns, his somewhat lacklustre and unwarranted assault didn’t really ignite the fuse as it should have and mostly tended to defeat the ostensible purpose of the cage match itself – which was supposedly to prevent any outside interference.
I assume that those who were responsible for concocting this dubious debacle had some perceptible pretext in mind, but I‘m not sure what the hell it was. Sometimes, getting too complicated or “cute” (as my dad used to call it), tends to defeat the purpose and keeping it simple and logical is a better way to go. That certainly seems to be the case here.
On that note, I’ll call this a wrap but will look forward to catching up with you all next week for more candid commentary on the wrestling scene.
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