This was a Hell in a Cell match for the vacant WWE Title.
Shawn Michaels is also the special guest referee, which feels very fair given that the last time he was a referee, he interfered in the match to try and help Triple H achieve his goals, and that he has a near fifteen year history of doing that.
This is the forgotten match between these two. Given that these two face off fairly regularly from June 2013 through April 2014, it’s entirely fair to have some matches fall through the gaps. It’s especially fair when that series features two (2) long television matches, a famous television gimmick match, several legendary angles, and a WrestleMania main event. Relative to that, this is a fall pay-per-view match with some bullshit attached to it, and which is marred by everyone getting mad at it for the WWE clearly trying to move on from Bryan and trying to end the feud here. It also is probably like the fourth best one on one match they had during that span of time, and never really has that big time run at the end and feels distinctly unfinished, but does so in a cool way.
Fortunately, this is a great enough pairing to have a great match just by virtue of having fifteen to twenty minutes to work with before that!
It’s Bryan’s first time inside the Cell and he puts on a totally manic performance. Gross throws into it, hurling his body at Randy against it, and even has the courage to miss a Tope Suicida and cream himself on the cell wall. Inexplicable that he had a broken neck a little over six months later. Orton spends most of this in control, but without breaking out any of his biggest offense yet. Shawn and Randy have tension over basically nothing, so Triple H meanders down to yell at Shawn. He accidentally gets hit when he pays more attention to his friend than the match, and the Cell is magically opened so that he can come in.
Bryan sees Hunter there, correctly assumes the worst, but falls for the ruse and gets Hunter with the knee finally after two and a half months. Shawn sees it, is actually fine and required no attention at all, and hits Bryan with the fucking kick and Orton pins Bryan to regain the title.
Shawn Michaels is too stupid of a character to have planned this, I think, but it feels deeply obvious that he got played once again from the guy who’s been using him for eighteen years now. Or maybe not! Shawn then pretends to be very sad the next night and showed up with “he’s my best friend” as an excuse, even saying explicitly that Hunter needed him to be there for him before slowly revealing more and more of himself, getting less sympathetic and more condescending, before Bryan grabs him and yanks him down into the hold until referees pull him off. The way Shawn talked the night after, it all felt like a plot, but it didn’t feel like one in the match itself. Or maybe that’s just a great plot. Who knows? At this point, they’re doing so well with all the different conspiracies, especially the double-crooked ref angle in September, that yeah, sure, fine. I don’t know. Either way, fuck him. Bryan snatching that motherfucker down into the hold and making him tap felt fantastic.
It’s another screwjob, and the fact that they followed up Bryan finally attacking this fucking loser by shunting him off into a Wyatt Family feud to try and stop this is FASCINATING. It’s basically the fall 1998 Steve Austin storyline, your top babyface gets screwed and screwed and finally looks ejected from the title picture before coming back to it for Mania. Again, to think you can start that process and then bail halfway through is one of the most arrogant things ever in the history of the company.
Again though, it’s very to stay mad when absolutely none of it works.
I usually say it about the WWE doing dumb stuff and you having to accept it because fuck, it’s the WWE, right, but it goes the other way here. You started something with Bryan. There are ways to eject on it, but screwing him over in story and throwing him aside isn’t it. They’ve gone too far now to back out without outright beating him clean, and with all the injuries, they’re too scared. Something was started, they don’t know how to stop momentum like this anymore, and it’s going to be seen through whether they like it or not.
You can’t half do it here. They paid their money at SummerSlam and they got in line with all the stuff in the fall.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
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HANDWERK 