Hell In A Cell 2019: 5 Things WWE did right at the PPV
WWE's annual Hell in a Cell show has come and gone, finishing up one of the most important weeks in the history of the company. Hell in a Cell was the last pay-per-view event of an era.
While it was treated as a somewhat unimportant event in the lead-up to the show, with only a handful of matches announced, the show ended up being more than just a period at the end of a long sentence.
There were some small and big moments, title changes, and a lot of the vicious brutality that one would expect out of the pair of Hell in a Cell matches.
Hell in a Cell was an exclamation point marking the end of the sentence that was the most important week in recent WWE history.
It wasn't a blow-away event with amazing matches one after the other, but it did its job well and was better than a lot of people probably expected it to be. Hell in a Cell set the tone for the next biggest week in WWE's recent history, the beginning of the next draft, and the official beginning of the USA vs. FOX era of WWE.
Here are 5 things WWE did right at Hell in a Cell.
#5 Orton shows Ali respect
WWE only announced four matches before Sunday's PPV event, so a few matches had to come into existence on the day of the show.
One of those matches was a SmackDown contest between Randy Orton and Ali. Ali has been trying to reinvent himself since his return from injury and Orton has been in limbo since he was twice unable to defeat Kofi Kingston for the WWE Championship.
If you need a solid match, just get Randy Orton and put him in the ring with a fast, high-flying competitor. That's what WWE did here, and it worked, just like it always does. Ali put up a very strong fight against The Viper and even had an incredible handstand-counter to the RKO.
Sadly for Ali, he would soon succumb to a real RKO, which came, as you may have thought, out of nowhere. After the match was over, Orton celebrated. But before he left the ring, Orton made a very simple gesture, fist-bumping his chest over his downed opponent.
Not only did Ali get to look very good in defeat, but he received a very brief, yet very important, sign of respect. Will it mean anything going forward? It's tough to say, but for the night, it was a small gesture with a big meaning.