6. Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose - Hell In A Cell (Hell In A Cell)
Rollins and Ambrose spent the bulk of 2014 scratching and clawing their way to the top of the card, culminating in their becoming the first pair of sub-thirty year olds to main-event a PPV since Undertaker and Yokozuna twenty years ago. It seemed like they never missed an opportunity to redefine something for the modern era this year. Be it a Lumberjack match, a six man tag team match, the dissolution of a storied faction, or Hell in a Cell. Years ago, Edge and Taker offered what was largely hailed as the new blueprint for Hell in a Cell. Ambrose and Rollins designed another new blueprint, paying homage to history in the process. It had been quite some time since a WWE feud organically peaked around the same time that the Hell in a Cell PPV was upon us. Years past had featured a myriad of forced scenarios. Rollins and Ambrose had a wonderful start to what should be a multi-year rivalry of epic proportions. They acted like it from the start of their HIAC match. You know, you couldn't help but wonder if they would do something off the Cell. Even though fans had been conditioned to no longer expect anything out of the ordinary inside Satan's Structure, there was something about the Rollins-Ambrose mentality that suggested we might see the unexpected. They fought to the top of the Cell before the match ever even started, officially, but we'd seen that as soon as last year. When they started to scale down the opposite wall of the Cell, anticipation grew. Modern audiences may not even remember the iconic falls off the Cell offered by Michaels and Foley. Well, they've seen it now. Rollins and Ambrose each bumped through a respective announce table in the Spot of the Year. The ending to the match gave us the beginning of the largely disappointing Ambrose-Wyatt feud, but they're not done by a long shot. Ambrose vs. Rollins will continue for years to come, surely achieving a Match of the Year at some future date.
"The Doc" Chad Matthews has written wrestling columns for over a decade. A physician by trade, Matthews began writing about wrestling as a hobby, but it became a passion. After 30 years as a wrestling fan, "The Doc" gives an unmatched analytical perspective on pro wrestling in the modern era. He is a long-time columnist for Lordsofpain.net and hosts a weekly podcast on the LOP Radio Network called "The Doc Says." His first book - The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment - ranks the Top 90 wrestlers from 1983 to present day, was originally published in December 2013, and is now in its third edition.
Matthews lives in North Carolina with his wife, two kids, and two dogs.
