Shining a Spotlight 10.18.07: Hell in a Cell

So, here’s my look at one of the most unique matches in wrestling as it hits its 10th anniversary. It’s a match that’s been notable ever since it was created as a way to really end feuds and be a major climax to programs, which is a key reason specialty matches exist. It’s a bout known for its brutality, violence and wild spots and has a great name too: Hell in a Cell.

The creation of Hell in a Cell is open for debate. A major candidate might be Pat Patterson, the same guy who created the Royal Rumble and so many other great bouts. However, Shawn Michaels claims to have come up with it in his autobiography, saying he was inspired by the classic War Games battles. While you should take a lot of HBK’s claims with a grain of salt, it’s clear War Games was an influence with the idea of a roof on the cage to keep people in. It also seemed inspired by a style of cage bouts WCW had used with the cage surrounding the ringside area. WWF combined the two to create a terrific cage that looked intimidating as hell. As cool as it was, it took the right workers and the right first two matches to give HITC its reputation.

The first took place at Badd Blood, October 5th, 1997. Shawn Michaels had cost the Undertaker the WWF title at SummerSlam by hitting him with a chair accidentally while referring the bout between ‘Taker and Bret Hart. Interestingly, Bret had worried about Shawn stealing some of the heel heat and the fears were justified as fans went against Shawn. He and the Undertaker had a great battle at the previous month’s “Ground Zero” with Undertaker flying over the top rope to splash Michaels and a host of heels outside after their wild brawl. So WWF decided that this was the perfect program to break in this new match. The storyline was that Undertaker conceived the Cell not only to keep out DX but also to cause Michaels the most pain. But even they didn’t expect the wildness to follow.

The sight of the cage lowering around the two men was enough to cause goosebumps but the battle that followed made it even better. Taker dominated utterly although Michaels managed to get him tied up in the ropes and went for a charge. Undertaker managed to flip him over, out of the ring and right onto a cameraman. Michaels was so annoyed, he pounded on the poor cameraman for a few moments before going back to Undertaker. Sgt. Slaughter (then the WWF Commissioner) ordered the cage door unlocked so the cameraman could be brought out. During this, Michaels hit Taker with his signature Sweet Chin Music only to have Taker sit right back up which freaked Michaels out so much, he ran out of the open cage door. Undertaker gave chase, ramming HBK’s face into the cage and Michaels did a terrific blade job, turning into a bloody mess within seconds. Michaels escaped by low-blowing Undertaker and climbing to the roof of the cage. Undertaker followed, pummeling Michaels and backdropping him onto the cage roof as fans watched in amazement. Michaels was eventually sent to the edge of the cage, clinging to the top as the Undertaker stomped on his fingers, sending Michaels flying 12 feet to smash through the Spanish announcer’s table.

As the fans went wild (keep in mind, this was before smashing the table was a common occurrence), Undertaker grabbed Michaels and dragged him “back into Purgatory” as Jim Ross put it. He gave Michaels a clothesline, a chokselam from the top turnbuckle and a savage chair shot before getting ready for the Tombstone. Before he could, the arena lights went out and the organ music began to play for the first time. Flames burst out and a red spotlight showed Paul Bearer bringing out a massive masked figure that everyone realized was the long-built-up Kane. Kane went to the cage and ripped the door off its hinges to stare down the stunned Undertaker. After a stare-down, Kane attacked, hitting Taker with a Tombstone and then leaving. A bloody and battered Michaels managed to crawl over and cover Taker for the pin ending what many felt was the most violent non-ECW match of that year.

Now, not a lot of folks know this but the actual second HITC took place on RAW in June of 1998. It was set to be Undertaker and Steve Austin against Mankind and Kane but Austin went out alone to attack the two men outside the cage. Paul Bearer decided to lock himself in the cage for protection so naturally the Undertaker came out from under the ring to brutalize him. Kane tried to rescue him but was stopped as Austin hit Mankind with a chair several times and ended up brawling with Kane on top of the cage while the Undertaker continued to pummel Bearer. The wild battle was only a hint of the carnage to come.

I know that the 1998 “King of the Ring” battle has been written about before but I will go over it again, not just the match but the context. In his autobiography, Mick Foley gave it all a new dimension revealing that the Undertaker had a broken leg and they were worried this match couldn’t live up to the first. So, in what he now acknowledges as one of the single worst ideas of his life, decided to listen to the advice of old friend Terry Funk and start the fight on top of the cage. So, Mankind came out to climb the cage and waited for the Undertaker to join him. They spent a few minutes punching and pushing and then came the moment that lives forever in wrestling fans’ memories: Undertaker grabbed Foley and tossed him off the roof of the cage and through the Spanish announcer’s table fifteen feet below. Even today, watching it on DVD, it’s still one of the biggest “HOLY SHIT!” moments ever as the crowd goes wild with shock and Jim Ross howls “Good God, Almighty, they killed him! As God is my witness, he’s been broken in half!” For once, that didn’t seem to be announcer hyperbole.

The cage was raised with the Undertaker still on the roof as everyone seemed to break kayfabe to come out and help Foley onto a stretcher. Just as Ross was apologizing for the shortness of the match, Foley stood up and, unmindful of a broken shoulder, pushed aside the officials to climb up the cage as the fans went wild seeing him back on his feet. He and the Undertaker fought for a few more moments with a chair before Taker chokeslammed him on the cage roof. It was a bad chokeslam in that one of Foley’s feet never left the surface of the roof. It was good in that if it had been done right Foley might be dead as both men had vastly overestimated the strength of the cage roof which gave way under Foley’s three hundred pounds, sending him smashing down to the mat below, the chair landing right on his face. “That’s it, he’s dead,” Jerry Lawler moaned as Ross said. “Enough is enough! Will someone stop the damn match!”

In his bio, Foley gives real credit to the Undertaker, saying that while everyone puts the success of the match on his own head, it was the Undertaker who helped it along giving Foley time to recover. As men once more ran into the ring, Undertaker climbed down the broken part of the roof, landing on his feet and hobbling a bit on his broken leg. Funk bought Foley time to recover by getting a chokeslam that knocked his shoes off. They showed replays of the fall and when it was over, Foley was somehow, someway back up.

Lawler: “How…how is he still standing?”
Ross; “I don’t have a damn clue. There’s shoes, there’s chairs, there’s a cage hanging down…”
Lawler: “And there’s a human being in there who is unbelievably indestructible! I never thought I’d say that about anybody but this guy is indestructible!”

Undertaker went for his typical walk the ropes move but Foley pushed him off and the cameras caught him smiling wickedly as a loose tooth was sticking through a hole in his bloody mouth. They spent a few more minutes pounding on each other with metal stairs, rammed into the cage so both were bleeding and more as everyone just stared in shock that Foley was capable of moving, let alone fighting. Mankind went to bring out a bag of thumbtacks, pouring thousands of them onto the mat and attacked Undertaker. He went for the Mandible Claw but Taker managed to lift him on his back and fell backward so Foley landed right on the tacks, rolling so they pincushioned him all over. Undertaker followed it up by chokeslamming Mankind onto the tacks as Lawler gasped “People are cheering this, JR!” Finally, the Undertaker hit a Tombstone and Lawler summed up the feelings of everyone watching by saying “Mercifully…this is over!”

The butcher’s bill for Foley was incredible: a dislocated jaw, dislocated shoulder, two broken limbs, one missing tooth, a concussion and 14 stitches for his lip. It took him two months to get back to full working health although he’s still not totally the same. However, all that pain did pay off. After 15 years of working, Foley had finally won the wide respect of wrestling fans everywhere for his amazing achievement, leading to the push that would make him WWF champion by year’s end and a hardcore icon. The match was voted “Match of the Year” by many fans and magazines although some complain about that. The most notable critic is Scott Keith, who gave it one star, saying there was no buildup to the bumps and no real action in between. That does seem to be overly harsh and even dismissive of the agony Foley and Undertaker went through to entertain the fans. Sure, there were better worked matches in 1998 but if you ask fans what the most memorable of that year was, HITC would probably top it.

After such brutality, Vince McMahon seriously considered never having a HITC match again. What is largely forgotten is that Mankind would have an HITC match with Kane just two months later on RAW, notable for how Foley repeated the cage dive but only the lower half of his body hit the table, the rest on the concrete. Foley would actually claim this hurt far more than either fall in the first match. He would recover to pull out a bag of thumbtacks and piledrive Kane onto them. Kane would bounce back to brutalize Mankind with three chair shots, a chokeslame and two Tombstones, one on the chair. Just as Kane was about to win, Austin came to attack him, ending the match in a no contest.

The next HITC is generally considered the worst of them all. It took place at Wrestlemania XV as the Big Bossman took on the Undertaker and lasted under 10 minutes, the shortest HITC match ever. Frankly, it’s worth noting only for the ending where, after being pinned by Undertaker, the Bossman was attacked by Edge and Christian, who tied him up with a noose and so as the cage was lifted, the Bossman was “hanged,” a move WWF took a lot of flack for.

Thankfully, the next one would help redeem the reputation of the match, taking place at No Way Out 2000. A month earlier, Cactus Jack had lost a wild street fight to HHH for the WWF title, the match that pretty much put Hunter over as a true main-eventer for fans. Naturally, Foley wanted a rematch, Hunter saying he’d give one but only if Foley promised to retire if he lost. Cactus agreed then named HITC as the match. Needless to say, fans expected a bloody battle and they got that in spades as HHH showed his love of violence by throwing steel steps at Cactus who retaliated by leaping off the top rope to the outside to smash HHH with a chair and grind his face into the cage. HHH tried to give Cactus a Pedigree on the stairs but was sent flying face first into the cell wall. Cactus threw the steps himself but HHH ducked, breaking a hole in the cage which Cactus widened enough for both to get through and brawl outside. Piledriving HHH on an announcer’s table, Foley followed it up by attacking with a 2X4 wrapped in barbed wire.

The two tried to climb up by HHH stomped on Foley’s hand sending him smashing through the Spanish announcer’s table. Foley would recover to climb up and they fought it out more. Cactus grabbed the 2X4 as Jim Ross said he probably had worse in store. Just as Lawler asked “What can be worse than a 2X4 wrapped in barbed wire?” Cactus answered him by lighting the weapon on fire and hitting Hunter across the back. He tried to piledrive HHH onto it but HHH backdropped Foley through the cage roof. This time, it was planned, the roof giving way and Foley smashing through the mat in a sizeable hole. HHH entered and was horrified to see Foley start to rise up. It was short-lived as a single Pedigree ended Foley’s comeback and allowed HHH to retain while Foley went into (semi) retirement.

Fittingly, 2000 ended with a HITC match as well. It was for December’s “Armageddon” and was set up as a six-man match for the title with Kurt Angle defending against Austin, HHH, the Rock, the Undertaker and Rikishi. The build-up was fun as Vince had tried to sway all the men from taking part in the match but got the hell beaten out of him in response. As you can expect, the match was a wild mishmash of various pairings and brawling with a nice series of each man hitting a finisher on an opponent only to have the pin broken up, the guy doing it hitting his own finisher only to have the spot repeated onward. After ten minutes of brawling, Vince came out with a pickup truck to try and remove the cage but was ejected by Commissioner Foley. The men exited the open cage to brawl around the ringside area, including on the cars used as props nearby with the Rock getting a pedigree on one truck by HHH who got hit by a boom mike by Austin and slingshot into a windshield. All the guys ended up brawling on the cage and Rikishi took the big bump, getting chokeslammed by the Taker off the roof and onto the back of the pickup truck (which, luckily, was filled with hay). The Undertaker would seemingly pass out from blood loss and stay on the roof for the rest of the match. The other four kept brawling it out, with another series of finishers on each other, the Rock taking a Stunner and while Austin and HHH fought, Angle crawled over to cover the Rock and retain the title, ending yet another wild Cell battle.

A long break was held before the next Cell match, which took place at Judgment Day in May of 2002. HHH had won the WWE title from Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania but had lost it to Hulk Hogan at Backlash due to interference from Jericho. So, a HITC match was held to settle their differences. It was, of course, a great match with as much technical battling as brawling with Jericho bulldogging HHH on a ladder. A notable bit was when official Tim White knocked into the cage and pummeled by Jericho which legitimately injured his shoulder and pretty much ended his officiating career. Once again, the Spanish Announcer’s table was a target as Jericho was DDTed on it. HHH then pulled a page from Foley to bring out a 2X4 in barbed wire and chased Jericho up the cage. They fought with the weapon back and forth before HHH finally hit Jericho with the Pedigree and, in a move that’s frankly surprising took so long, pinned him on top of the cage, the first time that’s ever happened. It’s also notable for being the last time a HITC match had the combatants on the roof.

As if to make up for the long absence, HITC returned only a few months later as Brock Lesner was riding high as WWE champion, feuding with the Undertaker who Lesner brutalized, supposedly breaking his arm. The Undertaker assured he’d be back for the title match at No Mercy and Smackdown GM Stephanie McMahon announced it would be a Cell match. Lesner’s manager, Paul Heyman, begged that the Undertaker not be allowed to use the cast as a weapon but Steph refused and the battle was on. It was incredibly brutal with Undertaker doing one of the absolute bloodiest blade jobs I’ve ever seen, his cut refusing to heal so he was gushing like a pig. Heyman would interfere, at one point wrapping his belt around Taker’s cast so Brock could nail it with a chair until the belt broke. Brock would peel off the cast and attack the Undertaker who would fire back with great power blows to rock the champion. At one point, after a chokeslam and Last Ride, Undertaker actually leaned over a fallen Brock to let the blood from his head pour into Brock’s open mouth in a sick shot. He would go for the Tombstone, but Brock managed to wiggle out and hit Taker with the F5 to pin him. This was a great battle that really helped put Lesner over with the fans and even Taker passing the torch a bit to this new star.

The next HITC battle was another poor one, taking place at Bad Blood in June, 2003. It was HHH defending the World title against Kevin Nash and naturally, there were worries over how the infamously stiff Nash could work a Cell match. They tried to add to it a bit by making Mick Foley the special ref with the idea that no regular ref wanted to handle the match. It turned out to be one of the better Nash matches due to HHH really carrying him well with the wild brawling such as using a hammer and HHH being sling-shot into a barbed-wire 2X4 hung in a corner (honestly, do those things just come with the cage?). Nash also did a nice blade job after being attacked by a screwdriver. In the end, HHH managed to pin Nash with a hammer shot and a Pedigree, not a real surprise to anyone.

An entire year passed before HITC returned at Badd Blood 2004, which was the latest in the long line of matches between HHH and Michaels. It’s notable for being the longest HITC match ever, lasting 47 minutes as both men did their best to brutalize the other. Ladders, tables, high flying, stairs, hammers, everything was used as they smashed each other around and both were a bloody mess. Actually, it might have been too long, both men doing too much of the “too exhausted to move” stuff to drag things out rather than non-stop action of past Cell matches. Don’t get me wrong, both guys are great workers but by the half hour mark, it just seemed they were killing time for no real reason. In the end, Michaels went for the SCM but missed and after three Pedigrees, Hunter finally pinned him, a satisfying end to their long program.

Another break would take place before HITC returned at Vengeance ’05 as Batista defended his newly won World title against HHH. Most everyone expected HHH to regain the belt here as he was undefeated in HITC matches. Hell, in his recent autobiography, even Batista said that was expected but instead, after so long on top, Hunter seemed ready to give the rub at last. They started with wild brawling before HHH introduced a chain to smack Batista and hang it from the top rope with it. HHH found a chair wrapped in barbed wire (so they were changing it up a bit) to attack Batista with. HHH tried to Pedigree him onto it but Batista managed to powerbomb him on it instead. HHH would bring out his trusty sledgehammer to hit Batista with, the champ trying to do it himself only to get punched with the chain. Hunter leapt off the ropes to punch with the chained fist but Batista held up the hammer to catch him in the mouth. The steel steps were brought in which HHH tried to Pedigree Batista on but the champ hit him with spinebuster, then the Batista Bomb on the steps to retain. The match was a great battle that cemented Batista as a main-event star with the fans and showed HHH was willing to put someone over.

The year would end with another HITC at Armageddon as Randy Orton and the Undertaker settled their long feud. It was a half hour of wild action with Undetaker showing some old brutality by ramming Orton face first into the cage to bloody him up. Orton would respond by busting Taker up with the steps Bob Orton Jr. interfering to break into the cage while personnel were attending to a fallen ref only to get nailed by his own son. Orton would borrow a page from HBK by splashing Undertaker through a table in a great spot. Taker would go for the Last Ride only for Orton to reverse it an RKO but the ref was laid out so Orton used the urn to stun Taker. Undertaker went for the Tombstone again but Orton reversed it into his own which Taker sat up from. Taker would try for a chokelsam only to pummel the elder Orton, ending up hitting both men with Tombstones and pinning both to end the feud.

The last HITC match was at Unforgiven 2006, debuting a new design to the cage with a wider edge and higher roof to allow more top rope maneuvers to take place. It was part of the long DX-McMahon feud as Vince, Shane and Big Show battled HHH and HBK. It was the first HITC handicap match and once again, Shane showed his daredevil side as he took an elbow drop from Michaels with a chair wrapped around his head. Vince also showed how far he was willing to go to entertain the fans by getting cut with a screwdriver and a hammer shot from HHH. Big Show seemed slow selling a groin shot but still had some good power moves throwing HHH and HBK around. Shane broke out the old Van Terminator to bloody HHH up while Vince dropped his pants for the Kiss His Ass club only to be splashed accidentally by Show. DX then grabbed Show to groin him around the ring post as all five were absolute bloody messes from face and even arms. In the end, Vince took a savage shot to be pinned and ended a match much more wild than fans expected.

So for ten years, Hell in the Cell has provided some of the most brutal and bloody matches one can imagine with one in particular an absolute classic. It’s helped end feuds and elevated stars to a new level and with its new design work, seems ready to keep on giving us some Hell for quite a while yet to come.

Been a bit since I opened up the reader mail bag so here comes a few letters. First, T. Williams talks on Samoa Joe:

You complained about Joe jobbing to Cage at No Surrender. Firstly, it wasn’t exactly a clean job. Second, it’s not like it made Joe look weak.
This could be them turning Joe back into the complete badass that is Samoa Joe. On to bigger issues though, the steroid scandal. I’m pretty sure that
these online transactions took place before the Benoit thing. Still stupid, but not stupid in the way of, they are gonna start cracking down-BUY SOME
DRUGS, stupid. They should have been cracking down all along and they wouldn’t be in this mess. To prevent people from trying to cycle off and on
the ‘roids and stuff, test every month, everyone. Test for everything and eliminate the loopholes. On to a lighter subject, Vince’s Little Bastard.
All I can say is, I hope this means push for Finlay. Peace.

I think having Joe lose like that to Cage when most expect him to get the belt is looking weak and shows how bad TNA has bungled him. And yes, some of the buys were probably made before they cracked down but you figured the workers would be more careful as they had to know how serious WWE would be taking it now with the added media attention. And we can hope for regular testing but with Cena out, WWE needs all the stars they can get so that might suffer a slight setback. As for Little Bastard, that seems to have gone nowhere now which is a shame as I thought it’d be great comedy gold to play with for a while.

Simon in Ireland gave me props for my Death of WCW review and Jennifer Stevens had this to add:

Great work on your review of “The Death of WCW.” I really don’t know why so many “smart” wrestling fans waste their time trashing WWE on message boards and sites like 411mania. The fed has its problems, but week in and week out it meets my single criteria for success, which is to entertain me for the two hours I’m going to spend watching. Your column did an excellent job of putting the current challenges into perspective, and hopefully it’ll shut a few people up.

Keep up the good work!

I know folks are bringing up WWE-WCW comparisons with the hot-shotting of the title at No Mercy and such but again, keep in mind that WWE just is a more visible company in the eyes of the mainstream to fall apart like that. As you point out, it’s TNA making a lot of the mistakes of WCW by over pushing stars who are years past their primes over the plethora of hot young talent they have at their feet. BTW, being so new to TNA, you missed when the two did impressions of HBK and HHH a few months back, claiming they were the reason DX was successful and setting up a challenge match that never happened. Once again, if TNA doesn’t start concentrating on the audience they have rather than the one they want, they’re heading to disaster.

On that subject, my column on AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels got a couple of responses with Derek Siow sharing this:

Totally agree – I started watching TNA looking for an alternative to the stale-WWE at the time and got hooked by AJ, Daniels, Abyss and Joe because of matches like the Unbreakable 2005 match that I thought were ‘awesome’. I saw parallels in those 4 to ‘the way the Rock, Austin, HHH, Foley had such hot feuds in the WWE in the late 90s which caused the swing in ratings away from WCW/nWo and back to the WWE.
As noted almost daily by every article and everyone speaking on the matter, TNA is only going to be a better product by differentiating themselves from WWE. TNA started doing this via the X division, 6 sides, and promoting fresh feuds with fresh talent such as AJ, Daniels, Joe, Abyss and they WERE stealing WWE fans. However, now that they’ve turned into a WWE wannabe they’re losing fans to ROH, and even worse back to the WWE

Anyways, great article – I almost wish that WWE would buy over AJ, Daniels, Joe and Abyss like they did the Radicalz so we can see AJ, Daniels and Joe hugging and crying at the main event of a future Wrestlemania each with a WWE, World and ECW World title in their hands one day! At least there’s a CHANCE Vince might book them right, while TNA can have Mark Henry and all the other WWE rejects that they so desire.

This sums up my main feelings on TNA. It’s not that I hate them, far from it. I want them to succeed as a true alternative to WWE like they were in 2005. The problem is, instead of doing what got them attention, which is great programs with great workers and an emphasis on in-ring action, they’re doing soap opera antics, idiotic skits, pot-shots at a company so much bigger than them and pushing guys who are long past over from other companies as main event stars. Yeah, they might grab more casual fans with Cage and Angle but Styles and Daniels proved they can carry programs and cards and TNA doesn’t need to rely on past stars to succeed. Too bad those running the company can’t seem to grasp that. At the same time, I don’t think it’s so bad they’ll bolt like the Radicalz as they recognize it’s better to be big fish in a small pond and still feel loyalty to TNA. Just hope that loyalty isn’t tested too far.

Jeremy Addison had this:

I could not agree with you MORE! I think TNA’s biggest problem isn’t their terrible booking its their insistence on using ex-WWE castoffs over their own homegrown stars.

Could you imagine if AJ and Daniels got half the push of a Team 3-D or VKM. They could be absolutely huge

I wrote back to Jeremy to point out how in 2005 both guys did get massive pushes to main event status and helped make the X Division hot. He replied:

Yeah they got massive pushes like you said, had great success with the loyal TNA fanbase and then got shuffled down the ladder for the ex-WWE fossils.

Oh well I guess Dixie has waste her money on something.

To be fair, Carter has done a great job keeping TNA going all this time with good decisions. Problem is, she lets herself be swayed a bit by Jarrett on who to get. It was JJ who wanted Pacman in TNA and urged to go after Angle and, after such a huge payday, TNA feels they have to push them to justify the cost. Of course, doing so means driving away so many loyal fans who helped the company grow in the first place which they may pay for down the line.

Also Around 411mania:

As noted, the Shimmy also looks at HITC and whether it merited being used.

Truth B Told wonders if fans complain too much.

You’re an Idiot and Here’s Why talks video games.

Evolution Schematic talks about Casket Matches.

Thoughts From the Top Rope takes an early peek at WM 24.

The Way I C It looks at music in wrestling.

Viral Dose of Reality looks at BFG.

The Fink books Matt Hardy/MVP.

Can They Be Champ has a great article in defense of Cena.

Piledriver Report wonders where all the great faces of RAW went.

Don’t forget Fact or Fiction, Column of Honor, Ask 411, 4 R’s, Triple Threat, Cut to the Crap and all the rest.

Well, hope to be back next week but did get called to report for jury duty so we’ll have to see. For now, the spotlight is off.