9 Match Star Ratings For WWE Hell In A Cell 2019

Usually, the introduction to this column acts an appraisal of the build, because the build and the payoff should each inform the success of the event.

Too often, WWE's sh*tty writers/excellent roster production unit yields uneven and pointless results. If the pay-per-view is excellent, so what? The build very rarely breeds must-see action, and the results are too often squandered.

This is difficult here because WWE, prior to Friday's SmackDown, the most important show of the year, advertised just three matches. Hell In A Cell, once the company's ultimate gimmick attraction, is now as inconvenient to WWE as it was to Mick Foley's ability to walk.

Sasha Banks Vs. Becky Lynch was booked very well - so well that the usual Match One f*ck finish actually warranted the stipulation. The Clash finish came off organic - again, through the physical commitment of the talent, and not a creative regime systemically intent on prolonging everything by lazy default. The Fiend Vs. Seth Rollins was driven purely through the former's star power. The Fiend was framed as an unprecedented threat throughout, Seth Rollins pitiful, but on aggregate, the Fiend character was so intriguing that it obscured how feckless and cold Rollins has become in an untenable babyface role. WWE avoided the WrestleCrap Gooker Iceberg by reorienting the focus of the dire summer Whodunnit to a tag team programme carried by Daniel Bryan's excellent babyface work.

And then they steered directly into it in the main event!

One of those WWE feuds so interminable that it feels like it started in 2017 - and Bray Wyatt is still a joke, so nothing has changed, really - this wasn't even the last chapter. Did anybody give a toss about the first?

This isn't a bad idea for a programme. WWE is high on Lacey Evans, and Natalya, as profoundly overexposed as she is, is best-equipped to steer her under the harsh glare of TV lights.

It's just a bad programme.

Useful only to chart Lacey's progress, the mat work was an exponential improvement on their catastrophic exchanges at the Royal Rumble. She looked composed here, where she has a tendency to get lost in the work when she juggles it with her more natural ability to project herself. She did well to weave her character work into the actual wrestling, by slapping Natalya on the a*se when applying a hold, and generally, this on-the-job training doubled as a fairly engaging and competent pro wrestling match.

Repetitive and methodical is a marked improvement on aimless and ugly, but still, this sort of thing is surely better suited for the Performance Center, not pay-per-view.

Star Rating: ★★¼