Although there is a little bit of sadness in the way that Hell In A Cell now takes place simply because it’s October, not  necessarily because the feuds require the intensity that the Cell brings into play, there was a lot to look forward to at 2015’s version in that respect.  It seemed the perfect playground to bring the Undertaker/Brock Lesnar feud to a conclusion and attempts had been made to ramp up the necessity for Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt fo clash within the confines of the demonic structure.

    But would either match live up to expectations?

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    In the main they both did.  It would be, in some respects, a toss of the coin to say which of the two was the better match. Taker/Lesnar had the history and the intensity that didn’t need to be manufactured.  The two had a crazy match, with back and forth brutality all the way, that held your attention from start to finish. For once the escalation of finishing moves being repeated actually added to the story.  As a climactic battle you couldn’t really have asked for much more from either man.  The issue between Reigns and Wyatt seemed less naturally conducive to needing the Cell, but they made up for it with a  refreshing, dare I say it, slice of “Attitude” with weapons and brutality galore.  They made it seem as if this was the only way to finish a deeply personal rivalry.

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    The undercard was a mixed bag.  To see John Cena’s open challenge, after months of teasing and using it to (theoretically at least) introduce and push the “NXT guys”, finally end to the overrated and underwhelming Alberto Del Rio was a disappointment.  It was a fair match, at best, but despite the clean win for Del Rio it did nothing to elevate him and nothing likely ever will push him past his current “big star that the WWE push but that no-one REALLY cares for” status. He’s long since hit his ceiling.  But in 2015 you just have to accept that for the majority of the time, this is how the WWE works.

    Similarly, I can’t imagine there were many happy to see World Champion Seth Rollins saddled in the middle of the card with Kane.  It wasn’t an awful match, but it wasn’t very good and it came across as very much what it was; filler until something better could come along for Rollins (which sadly, we never got due to his unfortunate injury).  Was the result ever really in doubt?

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    The New Day and the Dudley’s had a decent enough match, albeit one that was forgettable after the fact.  Kevin Owens and Ryback were only given five minutes or so which meant that they were hampered from the beginning.  Of course some would argue that five minutes of Ryback is more than enough, but that’s another matter.  A pre-requisite of wrestling booking should be that you play to the strengths of the performers; that didn’t happen here. It also didn’t happen in the Diva’s Title match.  Charlotte and Nikki tried to put on a match that would draw comparisons to some of the NXT classics we’ve seen in 2015 but they came nowhere near.  It wasn’t bad (other than a terrible botch of a top rope move that was so bad, I don’t even know what they were trying to do) and was actually quite good in places.  But it wasn’t “NXT good”.

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    If a PPV lives and dies on it’s “main events”, Hell In A Cell certainly delivered.  Both Cell matches were very, very good and both bear repeat viewing. The undercard was hit and miss.  Nothing was out and out awful, but neither did anything really stand out from what you might see on your average episode of Raw. Still, for the two Cell matches alone, this is essential viewing.

    The DVD adds the, fairly pointless, Kickoff match pitting Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro and Neville against Sheamus, King Barrett and Rusev.  The BluRay adds a few Raw and Smackdown moments , including a lumberjack match between Rollins and Kane plus the Undertaker/Brock Lesnar segment from Raw that was introduced by Steve Austin.

    7 out of 10.

    Photos courtesy: Fetch, Fremantle Media

    Format reviewed: Blu-Ray

    Thank you to our partners, WWEDVD.co.uk and Fetch for providing our review copy