10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2022
8. Cody Rhodes Vs. Seth Rollins - WWE Hell In A Cell
Should the match have even happened?
That was the talk heading into Hell In A Cell when it was announced that Cody had torn his bicep in training. Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics nailed the hypocrisy on Twitter: the practise of gory self-mutilation is bad, but only when you can see it outside of the skin. A far more revolting and dangerous use of blood is fine when it's a bruise and doesn't look like the tawdry cover of an '80s rasslin' mag.
The match went ahead, and it was a sobering, harrowing, almost unbearably dramatic - and phenomenally gripping - spectacle.
Tension hung over every second. The bruise was so grotesquely large that it was impossible to escape the feeling of revulsion and anxiety, and of course Cody was smart enough to work the living sh*t out of the feeling even if he didn't really have to. The man was in agony. He could have simply took basic, repetitive punishment and have elicited the same, disturbed reaction. He didn't.
He weaved every sequence around the injury, entering a legendary babyface performance built - expertly - around the desire and necessity to gut it out. He knew that even executing his own arsenal was to accept excruciating agony.
The maximalist history war in the final third didn't feel as unnecessary as it should have done, given it was clearly the plan before the perfectly wrong match fell into their laps.
It might have even helped Cody, with his reputation, in avoiding too heavy-handed a grandstanding performance; even in his most vulnerable moment, he still held the legacy of his father dear.