10 WWE Hell In A Cell 2018 Impulse Reactions
6. Heatless Agression
Hamstrung by a crowd exhausted by the exhilarating finish to the prior match, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe wrestled a match technically superior to their SummerSlam war but frustratingly free of crowd engagement.
The pair are so practised together after years of toil in TNA that it seems unlikely they'll ever assemble a 'bad' match, but nothing they did in this particular clash brought the crowd beyond a six on the emotional scale - disappointing particularly by the time they'd turned the workrate up to eleven.
Samoa Joe's dive had the ferocity lacking from all the ones used to send Monday Night Raw to commercial breaks each week, whilst AJ Styles' springboard 450 splash - like all of his truly 'Phenomenal' offence - looked designed to devastate first and delight second.
The screwy finish was well-executed by WWE's typically sublime production; the wrestlers put themselves in the exact right spots, whilst Kevin Dunn waited the right amount of time to show the replay that actually mattered. Corey Graves' matter-of-fact call labelling Samoa Joe as an uncrowned champion felt particularly pointed - may the 'Samoan Submission Machine' be preparing to take control of the blue brand belt after all?