From one tale of two friends turned foe to another that came some nine years priorthat of former Evolution cohorts Triple H and Batista. Having seen their all-conquering faction split at the turn of the year, the Game and the Animal would embark on a months-long feud revolving primarily around the World Heavyweight Championship. Batista had won the big gold belt at WrestleMania 21 and successfully defended it at Backlash, meaning their Hell in a Cell meeting at Vengeance 2005 would truly be last chance saloon for Trips. And as deep as their preceding storyline had been, unlike Seth and Deans Hell in a Cell meeting, there werent so many nuanced psychological details in this one. Contrastingly, Triple H vs. Batista simply became a story of two men beating one another to a pulp in one of the more brutal Hell in a Cell matches on record. The match was filled with a litany of weapons, including an array of some of the more unorthodox foreign objects. There was a hefty steel chain employed as a whip, the lesser-spotted barbed wire chair that saw its fair share of action, and of course the Games patented sledgehammer. Oh, and bloodlots of it. In the end, though, it was Batista who emerged victorious, reinforcing his new status as a bona fide main eventer with an emphatic win over one of the most-protected stars in the business.
