wrestling / Columns

411 Fact or Fiction Wrestling: Which Match Should Main Event Hell in a Cell?

October 23, 2014 | Posted by Larry Csonka
Dean Ambrose Seth Rollins Hell in a Cell

Welcome back to the latest edition of 411 Fact or Fiction, Wrestling Edition! Stuff happened, people loved/hated it and let everyone else know. I pick through the interesting/not so interesting tidbits and then make 411 staff members discuss them for your pleasure. Battling this week: First up is the one and only Mike Chin! He battles Mike Hammerlock!

  • Questions were sent out Monday.
  • Participants were told to expect wrestling-related questions, possible statements on quantum physics and hydroponics.

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    1. You’re excited for Sunday’s WWE Hell in a Cell PPV.

    Mike Chin: FACT – This is a very easy fact for me, and it’s simple as one match: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins in the Cell. These two are gold, and while they’re still finding their footing on the mic, when they get in the ring together, good things tend to happen. Factor in the gravitas of Hell in a Cell and a potential main event spot and I’m going to go out on a limb and say we might have the best WWE one-on-one match this year. Outside of Ambrose-Rollins, the card is completely inoffensive. Yes John Cena vs. Randy Orton is a stale matchup, but given the talents involved it should be a decent enough match on in-ring merits alone. I’m still hoping AJ and Paige might get the time to put together the match their capable of, and The Big Show-Rusev confrontation should be good for what it is.

    Mike Hammerlock: FICTION – I’m a bit of a sucker for a big event, so I’m always willing to watch a PPV, but the WWE has been generally dreadful in recent months. It’s hard to be excited about a promotion that’s become a rolling mess. At any given moment the talent could outshine the nonsensical and dull storylines (e.g. WrestleMania XXX), but I’m sort of onto obligation watching with the WWE. I don’t want to miss it if/when they turn things around and head in some fresh directions. The undercard for HIAC is littered with ostensibly fine matches. Rollins-Ambrose has MOTY potential and it would really feel like a passing of the torch if they closed the show with the match delivering on its potential. So, I’ll be watching, but I’m not excited and I’m somewhat dreading the possibility of WCW-style overbooking.

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    2. The booking of Dolph Ziggler has not only been a joke, but the company has missed the chance to elevate the secondary titles while World Champion Brock Lesnar is away.

    Mike Chin: FACT – It’s not too late to correct the course of the secondary titles, but for now it is pretty baffling why Dolph Ziggler has been such a jobber to the stars when he’s holding what is, in theory, the most prestige championship in active “play.” Particularly if the rumors are true and Brock Lesnar is gone until January, it’s a crying shame if WWE doesn’t do something to make the championships that are being defended feel more important.

    Mike Hammerlock: FACT – Though it’s a weird fact. Ziggler remains enormously over despite wearing the Cursed Belt. Before his recent four match losing streak, he was winning matches and crowds were gobbling it up. I maintain all fans are smarks to a degree, so Ziggler gets love for busting his ass while fans just give up on the idea that the IC title means anything. They absolutely should have him beating everyone in sight. They could even go back to 10-minute time limits so that they could milk draws out of confrontations like Dolph-Orton and Dolph-Rollins. They’re going to need more time before matches like that reach their epic conclusion. Anyway, you’d think elevating the secondary titles would be a primary focus with the WWE belt temporarily out of play. Sadly it’s not. Short of an IC-U.S. unification match, I’m not sure there’s any hope for the secondary belts. As long as there’s two it seems the WWE will view them as redundant and unimportant.

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    3. Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose should be the Hell in a Cell main event.

    Mike Chin: FACT – I can understand why WWE would be tempted to play it safe with its two most established full-timers in the main event, but in the absence of Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins has been WWE’s number one heel, and Dean Ambrose has more than stepped up to the plate to fill the collective void left by injured Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns this fall. Ambrose-Rollins is fresh, exciting, and likely to deliver a MOTYC. The Cena-Orton pairing flopped hard back in January, and isn’t likely to get the crowd much more behind it now. On top of all of that, in terms of kayfabe logic, Ambrose beat Cena to have the right to take revenge on Rollins–what sense would it make for the “consolation prize” match to main event the show?

    Mike Hammerlock: FACT – Of course it should be. The conclusion of Raw and Smackdown for the past month has consistently involved either Rollins or Ambrose standing tall. Their feud has had a great, logical, slow burn build. Ambrose had that wretched dummy promo Monday (it was every bit a thrilling as Clint Eastwood talking to a chair), but Rollins and Foley bailed him out. You’ve got betrayal, brutality and vengeance all tied up in two guys who very well may be the future of the WWE. If Orton-Cena Chapter 14 takes precedence over it, then either Vince McMahon has gone fully insane or John Cena is secretly running the company.

    SWITCH!

    4. The Randy Orton “RKO Meme” is the most interesting thing related to Randy Orton in years.

    Mike Hammerlock: FICTION – The meme is awesome, endless amounts of fun. Somebody’s got to have Orton RKO Gerald Ford stepping off of Air Force One. The WWE also is missing the boat if it doesn’t develop an RKO video game where Orton RKOs his way through a cityscape Grand Theft Auto style. For the Christmas episode, he ought to RKO everyone on the roster. Yet Orton winning the MITB briefcase followed by his cash-in at SummerSlam 2013 was pretty interesting. The WWE botched a ton of stuff after that, but that was a huge when it happened. Orton unifying the WWE and WHC titles at TLC also was interesting, and it would have felt bigger if he didn’t get treated like he was the Intercontinental champ between there and WM30. Otherwise, sure, you’d have to go back to the Christian feud in 2011. Yet the meme reminds us that Orton works really well as a universal ass-kicker.

    Mike Chin: FACT – While I respect Randy Orton’s objective in-ring talent and longevity, I have to admit that I haven’t really been a fan of his work for quite some time. I find his character tired and his approach to in-ring psychology to more often result in boring matches than compelling action. The RKO meme, on the other hand, had me literally laughing out loud when I first saw it–far funnier than any attempt at comedy WWE has ever intentionally produced, and appealing to casual fans to boot. Easy fact here.

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    5. Making John Cena vs. Randy Orton at Hell in Cell a #1 contender’s match is a poor move considering that Orton was the odd man out and Cena lost his way into the match.

    Mike Hammerlock: FACT – I’ll give some credit to the idea because it could morph into Rollins pulling strings for his eventual cash-in, but my initial reaction was the facepalm. Also, doesn’t Orton still have a rematch clause he can use? I mean, they’re not going claim that Battleground was his rematch, are they? If so, then Orton losing at WrestleMania when Daniel Bryan pinned Batista and then at Battleground when John Cena pinned Kane constitutes a royal screwing over. Anyway, I need to see another Lesnar-Cena match like I need to see another Dean Ambrose dummy promo.

    Mike Chin: FACT – This move makes little to no kayfabe sense, unless we get a story about The Authority gifting Orton a title shot in his hometown at Survivor Series, which could be interesting if Orton were to edge toward a face turn and Seth Rollins continued to lurk with the Money in the Bank briefcase. More likely, it’s just a way of justifying a Cena-Lesnar rematch which will probably be perfectly good, though I’d be much more interested to see just about anyone else have a first-time encounter with Lesnar instead.

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    6. You’re less likely to be interested in the Lucha Underground promotion, due to the fact that they are using the tired and clichéd “evil authority figure”.

    Mike Hammerlock: FICTION – I’m so conditioned to evil authority figures that I’ve learned to tune them out. As long as the entire show doesn’t revolve around Dario Cueto (like Dixie Carter in late 2013/early 2014), my interest will be driven by what they do in the ring. Also, Cueto strikes me as more of a takeoff of the Chairman on the Japanese version of Iron Chef than a meddling authority figure trying to rig the outcome for his stable of heels. That could turn on a dime, but if the guy’s mostly there for atmosphere it won’t bug me overly much.

    Mike Chin: FICTION – While a heel authority figure does nothing to enhance my interest at this stage, it’s such a common device that at this point that it’s almost a given and does not actively turn me away from the product. Hopefully the authority figure role gets played subtly–an mostly unseen hand that nudges faces in underdog positions, but we’ll see where it goes.