10 WWE Hell In A Cell 2018 Impulse Reactions

5. Mixed Blessings

The Miz Daniel Bryan
WWE

Daniel Bryan's second loss to The Miz in as many months may have been thanks to a bodged cheap pin on Brie Bella by Maryse, but the spouses deserve an awful lot of credit for making their doubles duel far more entertaining than the laboured SummerSlam singles battle.

For a company so often lazy with agent/producer work in matches of seemingly little importance, this was a stupendous advertisement for the painfully straightforward act of building heat.

Fans were made to wait and want for Bella finally getting her hands on the former Divas Champion, and popped like corks when they got their wish late in the game.

Brie's baseball slide was an inventive - and safer - spin on the company's over-reliance on dives, and had the contest not concluded so clunkily it could have been considered the biggest success story on the show.

WWE storylines are hampered by the need for them to go on so long in 2018. This mixed doubles ensemble piece advanced far beyond the sideshow it seemed likely to be when first booked - a final battle at Melbourne, Australia's Super Show-Down between Bryan and Miz feels earned all over again.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say. With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.