6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (7 Oct - Results & Review)

2. Selling Hell

Throughout its 27-year history, Hell in a Cell has been advertised as a gruesome match that shortens careers and leaves all of its participants forever changed.

But heading into this past weekend, 52 cell matches into the genre, things had devolved to the point where cell participants simply showed up on Raw the next night talking about how painful it was and then jumped right into their next feud. It rendered all the hype about the danger of HIAC meaningless and made it feel like a 2000s-era hardcore match with a cage rather than something special.

Monday night, however, there was CM Punk, bandaged up and limping out onto the ramp. He said he was in such bad shape that he couldn’t even walk to the ring. Punk claimed he didn’t feel like he won anything, that his future was unclear, and that he was more banged up than at any other point in his career.

Punk sold his tremendous match with Drew McIntyre by noting that he needed to go home for a bit to heal up before he could determine what his next steps were. He didn’t even try to set his sights on the World Heavyweight Championship because he didn’t even know if he’d make it back into the ring. That is how you sell hell.

Throw in McIntyre legit needing staples to close his head wound and not even being on Raw, and you’ve successfully put over Hell in a Cell as a serious, career-altering gimmick rather than an annual PLE with multiple cell matches for fun.