6 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Hell In A Cell 2017

5. A Step Forward For Tye

AJ Styles Tye Dillinger
WWE.com

The easy, cynical view is that Tye Dillinger was inserted into the United States Championship match to provide an easy out for the writers to transition the title from AJ Styles to Baron Corbin without AJ losing.

And while that might be true, Sunday’s triple threat U.S. title match represented a step forward for Tye. Why? Because Hell in a Cell was only Dillinger’s second WWE PPV appearance (not counting kickoff shows) after the Royal Rumble. Dillinger has been on the main roster fulltime since April and hadn’t had a PPV match until Sunday. Mull that over.

So being in that match was a step forward. But then, we also got to see Tye hang with AJ and help elevate the match – which on paper might have been pretty dull with Styles trying to carry Corbin – into something pretty good. Tye even had a couple moments where he looked like he had a chance to walk out with the strap.

But in the end, the Perfect 10 was there for one purpose. But hopefully, the higher-ups saw Dillinger use his opportunity to put in a solid performance, and it won’t be nine months before his next PPV bout.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.