Hell In A Cell - Live As It Happens

[Dylan Waco]

Confused as to why Snowden is posting in this thread still. Maybe he's no longer suits for PWO and he should move on.

[Blehschmidt]

Best part of the whole night was the R-Truth Network promo being the first thing you see after the Bray outro

 

[TRMD]

 

Best part of the whole night was the R-Truth Network promo being the first thing you see after the Bray outro

 

 

 

That is the best thing I've ever seen.

[WingedEagle]

 

 

lol @ evilclown's entry-level trolling and the people who fall for it

 

 

I don't think it's falling for it. It's just not being used to it because most people here are pretty earnest and anyone who acts like that gets banned pretty quickly, no matter who he was friends with in 1998 or if he has 500,000 people reading his stuff.

 

 

If you can't enjoy something like this it's because you are intent not to.

 

That's not "trolling." I'm deadly serious. You should be reevaluating everything about how you approach wrestling and whether this is right for you as a fan and a person.

 

Because that was good. It was well performed, to the point even the wrestlers who traditionally struggle seemed to find their path.

 

If you can look at WWE when it is hitting on all cylinders, when the announce team is less annoying than usual, the wrestlers are inspired and one match moves into another and suddenly two hours are gone—and not enjoy it—I legitimately worry that you are incapable of loving it.

 

If that's the case, you are wasting your time. Wasting it. We all learned here that life is fucking short. Don't be cynical and call any dissenting voice a troll. Anything but. I get why you'd want to do so. It's probably deeply disturbing that your identity is called into question.

 

Maybe, just maybe, you aren't a wrestling fan anymore. You're a wrestling observer. A critic. Wrestling has moved to a new place and you can't find it in yourself to make that trip. I'm not blaming you for that. But don't sit in the proverbial stands with your arms crossed across your chest, determined to pick apart any perceived flaws. That's just not healthy. And I can't imagine it is fun.

 

 

Trolling would be saying that instead of watching wrestling fans in their various environments, you should perhaps stick to going through your stack of WON's and highlighting the passages you want to include in your next book. But I'm not sure that's constructive.

 

I may have missed the part where folks here said that you or any of the 500K wrestling fans at Bleacher Report who go there for the wrestling content (rather than the work of journalists like Howard Beck or the site's renowned SEO engineers) couldn't enjoy the show or were wrong for doing so. If that is the case, I apologize. Some folks may have hated this show up and down the card. Others may have enjoyed some parts and found others less appealing. Still others may have fallen into either camp and then found a highly anticipated main event devolve into something completely unsatisfying that left a bad taste in their mouth and soured the entire card. A poor main event can do that. A great main event can also sometimes redeem an otherwise uninspired night.

 

I don't see how either a hardcore or casual wrestling fan would've enjoyed the show. But if they did that's great. That's the goal! But I'm sure as hell not to about to castigate someone and call them some blind fanboy for doing so. I'll be watching Raw tonight and next week and thereafter, and skipping Smackdown unless I hear there's something worth checking out, and then I'll be watching Survivor Series next month because I'm a wrestling fan. And if any of that sucks, I'll again say so because I'm a wrestling fan and will praise it for the same reason. Just like I'll be watching my 1-7 Jets next Sunday and likely losing my head at another garbage performance while awaiting a W and still sticking with my team. I don't have an audience of 500K, but think I learned a while back that being a fan doesn't mean loving everything my team does.

[pol]

I thought the Mizdow stuff totally jumped the shark tonight with how heavily they were focusing on it. Of course any time something organically funny happens they have to ruin it by constantly pointing out to you how funny it is. They can't help themselves.

[WingedEagle]

Yeah my concern with Mizdow is I don't know how far you can take it. I'm still loving it, but the joke will run its course eventually as it seems it is for some. You can have them split but that ends the gimmick and I don't know they'll get behind any meaningful Sandow push at that point, so it may just be a winner of a short-term gimmick and hopefully something else along the way clicks.

[TRMD]

I mean, I can totally see why someone would really like the show.

 

Dolph/Cesaro had some fun spots and 2 counts. Ziggler went over.

 

The Bellas match was horrible and I have no clue why anyone liked it.

 

Cena/Orton had some fun spots. A cool RKO out of an AA.

 

AJ/Paige had AJ and Paige who most people love..

 

Show/Rusev was a really good match.

 

Miz/Sheamus was fun because of Mizdow.

 

Ambrose/Rollins was reallty fun depending on your tastes. I thought it was actually pretty good.

 

Overall, I think the show was an easy watch. But I don't think it was a really good show and I understand someone not liking the show at all.

[pantherwagner]

 

 

Best part of the whole night was the R-Truth Network promo being the first thing you see after the Bray outro

 

 

 

That is the best thing I've ever seen.

 

 

I saw the show from the vault so I didn't see this. Freaking awesome.

 

[pantherwagner]

This is the first entire WWE PPV that I watch since the one where Lesnar killed Cena. Well, entire if you don't count skipping the women's matches and the Miz.

 

I liked Ziggler vs Cesaro and I usually don't like Ziggler matches but I'm afraid that they have missed Cesaro's momentum and when they decide to prop him up (if they do so) it may be too late.

 

Show/Rusev was great. At first I thought Rusev was a corny 80s gimmick being given to a limited guy but now it's a corny 80s gimmick being given to a guy that has grown a lot on it. It also doesn't hurt that he's been facing seasoned veterans. I hope he doesn't end up as fodder for Cena in half a year, that would be a waste. Maybe this would not be the greatest idea but they should also bring back Angle for limited dates to feud with/job to Rusev.

 

Ambrose/Rollins was attitude era stuff, I can see why some people would love it and others would hate it. I'd have liked to see a finish but their options seem so limited that maybe the best long-term solution is not to blow off the feud. I'd not have done the 90s WCW/WWF hologram thing though.

 

My expectations with WWE (and UFC) are not very high so if I get two matches/bouts that I like I'm happy.

[Superstar Sleeze]

 

Does Ambrose even really need a pin over Rollins after subjecting him to an ass kicking for most of the match? I have a hard time believing that Ambrose's stock with the average fan was hurt by getting screwed there after dominating the match and looking cool as hell doing it. The idea that he needs to get the win to come out of his match looking stronger than he went in just seems like a weirdly mathematical way to look at booking. He exacted his revenge, had Rollins begging off and now the heat is transferred to Bray.

 

Look at Ryback in 2012 for an example of how being repeatedly screwed over can kill a babyface's heat.

 

I agree to a point what you are saying. The main problem was that Ryback had the 3 match post-WM series with Cena where he was hastily turned heel and subsequently buried. The critical point to which I agree was that Ryback was transitioned out of the Shield feud too soon. He was the main target of the Shield wrath. He was the one destroyed at Survivor Series. He was one having excellent six-man tags with them. Then *poof* a meaningless feud with Mark Henry while Show, Orton and Sheamus get to fight the Shield at Mania that was fucking stupid. Until, you realize what their true intentions for Ryback were to be Cena's job boy for three PPVs.

 

The Ambrose example is not as egregious because he at least got to have Hell In Cell with Rollins and exact a modicum of revenge. It could be worse, Cena could have fought Rollins and Ambrose already transitioned to Wyatt or Orton. So he made it further than Ryback. The general feel for yearning is still there because he did not get the outright victory. The other problem most likely being that Rollins won't even sell this beating long-term. So the only true way to have hurt Rollins would be take Money IN The Bank or put him on the shelf so to speak, which if he had done the cinder blocks may have happened. What makes this all as bad as Ryback is just like the Mark Henry feud, the Bray Wyatt will be just as pointless.

 

[funkdoc]

evilclown: if you are in fact acting in good faith here, i would offer this up -

 

i think a lot of people here just don't like the mcmahons' core philosophy toward wrestling. look at someone like loss, who's very consistent on this - he's laid out his fundamental issues with 80s WWF many times (see hulk hogan GWE thread for a recent example), and he & others here are brutal toward stuff like gorilla monsoon's commentary and the overall presentation of the show. i would say a good chunk of this forum are wrestling fans but definitely *not* WWF/E fans, and that doesn't just apply to the modern product.

 

problem is, it's the only game in town in the US, so people will still keep up with it to some extent & watch the PPVs because there is an incentive to TRY to find something to enjoy in it. in particular, WM30 and the following night's raw got a ton of people's hopes up, and i think some are still coming to terms with the fact that it's still the same old WWE at heart. and there's no WCW or joshi or shootstyle or red-hot AAA/AJPW to turn to anymore...AFAIK you really just have NJPW & CMLL as viable modern alternatives to titanland, and we know how divisive the former is here. put all of that together and you have a recipe for people still tuning in once a month to a show that doesn't really satisfy them. loss gave up earlier this year, but even he took a decent amount of time to realize that he's just not a WWE fan...and he probably dislikes the style more than most. in the immortal words of bill parcells, it is what it is.

[evilclown]

 

 

 

lol @ evilclown's entry-level trolling and the people who fall for it

 

 

I don't think it's falling for it. It's just not being used to it because most people here are pretty earnest and anyone who acts like that gets banned pretty quickly, no matter who he was friends with in 1998 or if he has 500,000 people reading his stuff.

 

 

If you can't enjoy something like this it's because you are intent not to.

 

That's not "trolling." I'm deadly serious. You should be reevaluating everything about how you approach wrestling and whether this is right for you as a fan and a person.

 

Because that was good. It was well performed, to the point even the wrestlers who traditionally struggle seemed to find their path.

 

If you can look at WWE when it is hitting on all cylinders, when the announce team is less annoying than usual, the wrestlers are inspired and one match moves into another and suddenly two hours are gone—and not enjoy it—I legitimately worry that you are incapable of loving it.

 

If that's the case, you are wasting your time. Wasting it. We all learned here that life is fucking short. Don't be cynical and call any dissenting voice a troll. Anything but. I get why you'd want to do so. It's probably deeply disturbing that your identity is called into question.

 

Maybe, just maybe, you aren't a wrestling fan anymore. You're a wrestling observer. A critic. Wrestling has moved to a new place and you can't find it in yourself to make that trip. I'm not blaming you for that. But don't sit in the proverbial stands with your arms crossed across your chest, determined to pick apart any perceived flaws. That's just not healthy. And I can't imagine it is fun.

 

 

Trolling would be saying that instead of watching wrestling fans in their various environments, you should perhaps stick to going through your stack of WON's and highlighting the passages you want to include in your next book. But I'm not sure that's constructive.

 

Was that supposed to be insulting? My books are written using journalists, historical research and living participants to form the base of a narrative. I used the Observer sparingly in Total MMA, we didn't use it much at all in The MMA Encyclopedia, but a handful of chapters in Shooters did lean on Meltzer's written work and extensive interviews with him.

 

The Wrestling Observer is one of a small handful of serious journals about wrestling and wrestling history. I'm not sure, in fact, how one would write about contemporary wrestling history without relying on it in part.

 

In my book Shooters I don't cite the Observer until chapter 16 on Inoki. Early wrestling history isn't an area he's written about at any length or with particular authority. I used Dave again as a major source for Brawl for All, Lesnar and Angle in WWE and some on the formation of shootstyle wrestling. There's no chapter, however, where he's the primary source for anything, though he certainly has a very strong body of work and a memory like a steel trap.

 

I expect, if I write about wrestling again, I will indeed use Meltzer as a source. Anyone would—and should.

[WingedEagle]

Up to you how you take it. As it is also up to you and your editors to determine how little citing you can publish with. Pro tip: next time, use something a little more reliable than MS Word's spelling and grammar check. You're not working on a 7 day deadline and thus have the time for proper editing.

[Russellmania]

evilclown: if you are in fact acting in good faith here, i would offer this up -

 

i think a lot of people here just don't like the mcmahons' core philosophy toward wrestling. look at someone like loss, who's very consistent on this - he's laid out his fundamental issues with 80s WWF many times (see hulk hogan GWE thread for a recent example), and he & others here are brutal toward stuff like gorilla monsoon's commentary and the overall presentation of the show. i would say a good chunk of this forum are wrestling fans but definitely *not* WWF/E fans, and that doesn't just apply to the modern product.

 

problem is, it's the only game in town in the US, so people will still keep up with it to some extent & watch the PPVs because there is an incentive to TRY to find something to enjoy in it. in particular, WM30 and the following night's raw got a ton of people's hopes up, and i think some are still coming to terms with the fact that it's still the same old WWE at heart. and there's no WCW or joshi or shootstyle or red-hot AAA/AJPW to turn to anymore...AFAIK you really just have NJPW & CMLL as viable modern alternatives to titanland, and we know how divisive the former is here. put all of that together and you have a recipe for people still tuning in once a month to a show that doesn't really satisfy them. loss gave up earlier this year, but even he took a decent amount of time to realize that he's just not a WWE fan...and he probably dislikes the style more than most. in the immortal words of bill parcells, it is what it is.

I think this is really well said

 

anyway I thought last night's show was just 'OK'

 

I don't really get the whole "if you didn't enjoy this then you won't enjoy anything" argument here...I mean there are some shows I might say that about, but that's not a stance I would take on this particular show. Can't speak for others, but I certainly have enjoyed the hell out of several WWE PPV's in the last couple years so it's not like I'm just some joyless cunt. I just thought last night's show felt like a good episode of RAW with the exception of the Cell matches. The Cell matches themselves were both good, but flawed.

[evilclown]

Up to you how you take it. As it is also up to you and your editors to determine how little citing you can publish with. Pro tip: next time, use something a little more reliable than MS Word's spelling and grammar check. You're not working on a 7 day deadline and thus have the time for proper editing.

 

That doesn't even make sense as a critique. I wrote the book in Pages for one and it's meticulously sourced to include dozens of interviews with core subjects.

[Jimmy Redman]

To whoever asked "Did Ambrose REALLY need to win the match? He was dominating most of the match - what does it matter?" My answer to that would be, emphatically, yes. It matters.

 

I can't speak for anyone else's feelings, but for me, the excuses I see people come up with like "at least he got to beat up Rollins during the match" and "well Kane interfered in the first HIAC" and "it transitions Ambrose onto Bray" and "Ambrose will still be featured as an upper-midcarder going forward", these things are all largely missing the point.

 

I really didn't like Bray interfering and costing Ambrose the match. Not because I have a problem with screwy finishes on principle, even for HIAC. Not because I dislike Bray or the idea of Bray/Ambrose going forward. Not because I'm particularly worried about Dean Ambrose's job security or that he'll be pushed down the card. Not because it was "bad booking".

 

I'm mad because this was a blood feud between two rivals, two guys who have been kept apart since MAY through screwiness and injury angles and bullshit. You have a madman out for revenge on a guy who a) betrayed him and their team and sold out, and TRIED TO KILL HIM WITH BRICKS. The only times they've actually got as far as having a match, Rollins wins via screwiness. And now, almost six months later, Ambrose finally, FINALLY gets his chance for revenge locked inside HIAC with Rollins, THE big feud-ender.

 

...and Rollins still wins via screwiness from an uninvolved third party. What.

 

You really can't have the babyface win the fucking blow off match? You really spend six months doing this whole thing where Ambrose is out for revenge and body parts and gets foiled at every turn through bullshit, just for the ending to be...more bullshit and no revenge? Why the fuck did I just spend six months watching this feud if you weren't going to end it properly?

 

It's becoming a habit with WWE. If you're not John Cena, you don't get to just win in the end. WWE is becoming scarily like TNA was at one time where they refused to just blow off feuds at the right moment, and instead went with bullshit on top of more bullshit to try and stretch angles out six months past their use-by date, by which point people stopped caring. It's either that, or they just refuse to end feuds at all. They just have a third party attack someone and BAM, new feuds without ever resolving the old one.

 

Think about Daniel Bryan last year. They really built him up as the underdog and put him through all that bullshit in 2013...and then jobbed him to Bray and were about to transition him back to the midcard if not for the fans' intervention. They were never going to pay off that whole fucking thing. They just beat him a bunch of times via bullshit, and then left it there as he transitioned to a third party. Everyone moves on. No fucking END to the story. And much the same thing is happening here.

 

WWE has forgotten how to tell a story. They have beginnings, middles and ends. In wrestling that means face gets wronged, face gets revenge. Face faces adversity, face overcomes adversity. Of course with never-ending weekly TV WWE is episodic by nature, but that doesn't mean they can't blow shit off properly. Can't tell a story from start to finish, and THEN move onto the next story. That's what the night after the PPV show is for! They used to be able to. But now they do the beginning, the middle, and then drift off by the end and refuse to finish the damn thing. But you need to finish it. People need that ending, especially a happy ending, especially for the kind of story this was. That's the whole point of doing the story in the first place. You build something up, and then pay it off. It's a release. It's carthartic. It makes you feel like it was worth watching from the start. When you just go with continual fuck finishes, there's no payoff, no release, and it makes you feel like you've been wasting your time expecting a real result.

 

You can ask why Ambrose needed to win the match, but I think in the case of 'wronged babyface has been continually screwed for six months and now finally has chickenshit heel locked in a cage in a PPV main event', you should really be asking "why shouldn't he?" Nothing about Bray's interference made it crucial to the result of the match. Nothing would have been lost by having the exact same thing happen after Ambrose pins Rollins. Or even the next night. I actually think it would have been better and carried more weight that way. If Ambrose wins, finally gets his big moment of revenge, and then Bray comes, that pisses me off because my man Ambrose just got a big win and that fucker just ruined his moment. Not to mention, Ambrose gets a big win over Rollins (who has been protected very well and wouldn't hurt from a loss here) and thus you have a built-in angle when Rollins wins the WWE Title. With the way it happened, it makes me think that they won't let Ambrose get a big win, he's just like every other goof that they push for five minutes and then cool off on, and the heat goes to the company. I don't want to be mad at the company or the booking. I want to be mad at the heel. But it's hard when the booking makes me feel incredibly ripped off for even bothering to care about the feud in the first place. And I can't even imagine how I'd feel if I paid MONEY to see this blow off.

 

When we watch WWE we're armchair bookers a lot of the time, and super nerdy analysts a lot of the time, but we're also simply fans watching something wanting to be entertained. I don't get mad because I want to armchair book or because I care deeply about the inner-workings of the company or the health of the careers of those involved. I'm mad because I want to be entertained, want to watch a story play out, and they fucked the ending up. If the Lion King ended with Simba jobbing to Scar after a random wilderbeast knocked him off the ledge to set up Lion King 2: Simba vs The Wilderbeasts, I'd think that was a shitty ending to the story they were telling, even if I ended up liking Lion King 2. I watched this whole damn feud. I just wanted to see the right ending. But they gave me a shitty ending instead. That doesn't entertain me, that frustrates me.

[evilclown]

Many people here and throughout what we call the IWC are perpetually aggrieved customers. The problem is your expectations. Fans seem to a have a certain vision of what wrestling is and should be and expect WWE to fit into that mold.

 

Unfortunately, it's a ship that sailed 30 years ago, if it ever sailed at all. The prevailing form of wrestling is not the one you seek. If you go into a show looking for it and judging anything that doesn't resemble it harshly, disappointment is almost a given. To borrow a jdw musical analogy, many wrestling marks are like Beatles fans—only they're Beatles fans wanting Please Please Me long after the band has moved on to a different sound and philosophy.

 

Other issues, like a desire for clean finishes that have almost never been a part of wrestling historically, create the same problems. Wrestling, by design, has very few definitive endings. It's a never ending serial with the same characters, played on an endless loop. That's its great strength, because the stock characters and stories are instantly recognizable, and its greatest weakness—it can also grow wearisome to those who stick around for the ride too long.

 

I admit to not having articulated these ideas well and to being a little miffed at the response here. I apologize to anyone offended.

[Jimmy Redman]

If this is in reply to me, you're a bit off base with those two points.

 

I'm pretty young and I grew up on a diet of 21st century WWE. The good ol' days to me are 2004, which isn't all that far off from what we have now, minus PG. I have no attachment to 80s WWF or the NWA or whatever else you were saying. I'm actually a huge ass modern WWE fan.

 

I have no problem with screwy finishes on principle, nor do I have a devotion to clean finishes on principle. Call me crazy, I just think the babyface should be able to win the God damn blow-off after being screwed around for six months.

 

Wrestling certainly does have definitive endings. Life goes on the next day/week, sure, but you absolutely have them. Big title wins, big blow off matches, big feud-enders. They exist. They're the whole point to having the babyface chase, to having the story. Cena certainly gets to have them. Just nobody else apparently.

[WingedEagle]

 

Up to you how you take it. As it is also up to you and your editors to determine how little citing you can publish with. Pro tip: next time, use something a little more reliable than MS Word's spelling and grammar check. You're not working on a 7 day deadline and thus have the time for proper editing.

 

That doesn't even make sense as a critique. I wrote the book in Pages for one and it's meticulously sourced to include dozens of interviews with core subjects.

 

 

Don't they explain the whole literal / metaphor thing in writing 101? Maybe it is meticulously sourced. It just so happens that when reading it the thought that came to mind most often was "huh, this sounded a whole lot better when I first read it in the WON" and the second was "wow, this was poorly edited." In this case, I'm speaking as critic, not fan.

 

Many people here and throughout what we call the IWC are perpetually aggrieved customers. The problem is your expectations. Fans seem to a have a certain vision of what wrestling is and should be and expect WWE to fit into that mold.

 

Unfortunately, it's a ship that sailed 30 years ago, if it ever sailed at all. The prevailing form of wrestling is not the one you seek. If you go into a show looking for it and judging anything that doesn't resemble it harshly, disappointment is almost a given. To borrow a jdw musical analogy, many wrestling marks are like Beatles fans—only they're Beatles fans wanting Please Please Me long after the band has moved on to a different sound and philosophy.

 

Other issues, like a desire for clean finishes that have almost never been a part of wrestling historically, create the same problems. Wrestling, by design, has very few definitive endings. It's a never ending serial with the same characters, played on an endless loop. That's its great strength, because the stock characters and stories are instantly recognizable, and its greatest weakness—it can also grow wearisome to those who stick around for the ride too long.

 

I admit to not having articulated these ideas well and to being a little miffed at the response here. I apologize to anyone offended.

 

That last line is the closest thing you've come to an accurate statement, though it is again flawed because the issue here isn't a blind rejection of anything other than a clean finish. It was a rejection of what people viewed as a crap finish on top of a crap match in a main event that was highly anticipated. If that same finish followed a hot match, rather than what those who didn't enjoy it may have seen as a couple contrived spots built around some poor storytelling, I don't think the reaction would be quite so negative. Similarly, if there was a strong, conclusive finish after a hot, brief finishing stretch that followed the earlier theatrics and wasn't built around a bunch of characters people find stale, I don't think the reaction would be quite so negative. There are very strong purposes for having inconclusive finishes. Believe it or not, some of the fans you rush to label as critics actually understand and appreciate that. Very often, that purpose is to build and maximize anticipation of a conclusive finish. Where that's teased and drawn out for so long only to be scrapped in favor of smoke and holograms -- literally -- people may very well find that disappointing. But stay the course with such nuanced analysis that says everybody should enjoy whatever is presented to them at all times and avoid any criticism at all. That's the kind of deep, probing thinking that keeps the critics coming back.

[Coffey]

 

 

WWE has forgotten how to tell a story.

 

I don't think they have forgotten how just that they don't finish all of them. The Daniel Bryan title win at Wrestlemania last year was a good finish to a story. Not the story they weren't necessarily trying to tell at the beginning but at the end, the fans got what they wanted (other than him winning the Rumble).

 

I just think they don't care about most of the roster so they're kinda apathetic to some of the stories. Plus with Vince changing his mind so often & writers writing to appease him instead of trying to write the best show, things get wonky.

 

I'm not sure how much the WWE Network is going to change things in the future. PPVs used to be $50. Now on the Network they're $10. That's a lot less revenue. I know if I get paid less, I don't work as hard. So I hope that doesn't translate to the shows too. I don't know if the payoffs are less for the wrestlers but the workload certainly didn't diminish any. And now WWE makes less off the shows so they might not try as hard each month. I dunno. That's what I'm worried about.

[evilclown]

 

 

 

Don't they explain the whole literal / metaphor thing in writing 101? Maybe it is meticulously sourced. It just so happens that when reading it the thought that came to mind most often was "huh, this sounded a whole lot better when I first read it in the WON" and the second was "wow, this was poorly edited." In this case, I'm speaking as critic, not fan.

 

 

 

 

Considering the bulk of the material in the book was never written about in the Wrestling Observer you can imagine how seriously I'm taking this claim of plagiarism. I'd be happy to engage any specific critiques, but I'm not interested in some kind of personal battle of wills with an anonymous internet guy making pretty absurd and hurtful claims of illegal and unethical behavior.

[evilclown]

But stay the course with such nuanced analysis that says everybody should enjoy whatever is presented to them at all times and avoid any criticism at all. That's the kind of deep, probing thinking that keeps the critics coming back.

 

 

Of course that's not what I wrote at all.

[pol]

I wouldn't dispute that the Ambrose/Rollins finish was bad storytelling, I'm just not convinced it hurts Ambrose. I'd say it is more likely to hurt the fans' investment in the product as a whole before it hurts Ambrose.

[Jimmy Redman]

 

But stay the course with such nuanced analysis that says everybody should enjoy whatever is presented to them at all times and avoid any criticism at all. That's the kind of deep, probing thinking that keeps the critics coming back.

 

 

Of course that's not what I wrote at all.

 

 

It's kind of what you meant though, when you flat out said that this show was so undeniably amazing and above criticism that anyone who didn't like it must be wilfully refusing to enjoy watching wrestling.

 

That's the oddest part of this whole thing to me. It's really not like this was some amazing top-to-bottom great show that was generally well-received but is being criticised here. At least in that case I could get making the argument, even though it's still a shitty argument. But for THIS show? It's pretty much middle of the pack, with some good matches, and with a very controversial ending. It's being criticised in a lot of places that I've seen, and praise is more along the lines of "I enjoyed it" and not "This was a classic show that you must be crazy to dislike". There have been better PPVs this year. So it's just...strange, I guess, that you'd choose this show in particular to be all "how can you not enjoy that show?" and claiming sinister or psychological reasons why. It was just a show.

 

For what it's worth, my mother is the biggest wilfully enjoying WWE mark I know, and she hated the show. Hated the finish, didn't like any of the matches particularly, and felt awful when it was over.

[Loss]

Feel free to keep debating Hell in a Cell and the various reactions to Hell in a Cell. If you want to criticize evilclown's book or his other work, that's fine too, but can I ask that we start a separate thread for it? Focusing on last night's show should be the focus of this particular thread. Thank you.