How WWE has lowered hell in a cell

On Sunday, WWE announced its 20th anniversary of Mick Foley's famous match with The Undertaker, where the former was thrown from the cage in one of the wildest. stunts in the history of wrestling. This is not exactly It's true: on June 28, we celebrate the 21st anniversary of the first match period with Undertaker against Shawn Michaels. For our purposes, however, it's a good excuse to review the story of what has become one of WWE's most famous gadget games, even though its usefulness has changed dramatically over time.

Michaels and Jim Cornette, then a member of the WWE creative team, quoted the cell as largely inspired by "The Last Battle of Atlanta," a bloodbath that ended in 1983. cage closed. In WWE in particular, it was a radical change from the standard steel cage match because the industry leader had a rather unique view of how the gimmick was executed. Almost everywhere else, the cages were considered impenetrable barriers around games requiring a definitive winner, but at WWE, it was almost the opposite: the first wrestler to escape the cage won. Originally, it worked, but only because it suited perfectly to Bruno Sammartino's personality. After his death, WWE cage matches did not generally feel as violent as they had during climbing competitions that were sometimes disturbed by moats where a person had been sent through the door. So when Hell in a Cell appeared for the first time in 1997, a real cage designed to keep everyone away and allow wrestlers and referees to lead the game to a decisive conclusion. matches at WWE.

The ensuing match was a magnificent professional wrestling show, the best cat fight in WWE history and one of the best (at least on video) in the history of the genre. The match perfectly uses the characters of Undertaker and Michaels, with the imposing "Dead Man" tracking the loose "Heartbreak Kid" around the cage, dismantling him slowly and scared him because he has the Space (it surrounds the ring). zone) and the time to do it. Both men presented career-level performances, with Michaels having the most memorable moment in a critical eye, cutting through the air to draw blood while being catapulted into the cage. And when they fact need to get in or out of the cage, this has been done logically (at least according to the wrestling standards): first with the injured cage cameraman and then with Kane, the little newbie brother of the Undertaker, using his superhuman strength to tear door of his hinges. It's a great match, but it also set a dangerous precedent: waiting to leave the cage and knocking a person down by a table next to the ring, Michaels diving after hanging on the edge of the roof .

This set the stage for the June 1998 Undertaker-Foley match (in his film Mankind Gimmick) during the King of the Ring à la carte show. The story has been told to satiety for 20 years in Foley's writings and numerous interviews, among others, the final version is probably the 2013 oral history published on WWE.com. Mankind and The Undertaker had been fighting for more than two years, with the Cell match being the first singles bout of the 1998 iteration. Foley, who was particularly hard-fought at the time, failed to put a match that could meet expectations and that did not help. The Undertaker heals an ankle injury either. So when he asked the hero / mentor Terry Funk, the suggestion was to start the match on the cage roof, with Funk "jokingly," adding that Mick should then be thrown and then back up.

The beginning of Taker-Mankind throughout the dive.

When The Undertaker threw Foley to the top of the cell across the table of Spanish advertisers, he came out of nowhere. Unlike what is happening today, when WWE telegraphs this sort of thing by partially cleaning up the table, Foley crashed into a normal and fully operational broadcast configuration, with sharp CRT monitors. Compared to Michaels' impressive hump, Foley went down from above and with probably less control, and it was shocking. Senior announcer Jim Ross, a longtime friend and supporter of Foley, was clearly unaware. God Almighty THEY KILLED HIM! "In a bit of tip. After a little delay with Funk, Vince McMahon, shiatsu masseur François Petit (called WWE doctor) and other people who hit Foley on a stretcher, he got up and started climbing again . Moments later, this led to an Undertaker chokeslaming through the roof of the cell and into the ring.

What happened exactly at this point has been debated for two decades. In the first Cell game, Michaels took several steps on the roof and it held up well. Here, even before the first fall, there was a moment when the corner of one of the mesh panels that make up the roof gave way. While Foley always insisted that the second fall was an accident, when he hit the carpet, links were visible all over the ring, suggesting that Something had been planned. That said, a chair was left on the panel of the cage that gave in, so when Foley went through, the chair followed, accelerating down and hit it in the jaw, disqualifying it and hitting it. This clearly not planned.

In a certain way, after all this, Foley went on and finished the match, taking a bump on the bugs for good measure. For better or for worse, this match – well, really the first big drop on the brink – came to define both Foley's career and the gimmick Hell in a Cell. The first, apart from a few ad hoc interventions, was carried out a little over a year and a half later. This Foley was a legitimately talented arena storyteller and an increasingly talented speaker fell on the edge of the path for fans who did not see the big picture. More than ever, it has become a source of inspiration for fans who, because of a lack of "superstar", have felt that they could become stars of professional wrestling by losing money. field because Mick Foley had done it.

For the Hell in a Cell match, he reinforced the expectation of unsustainable falls from heights. Some were reinforced by strategic assault pads, but it was rare and most were largely forgotten. Hell, just weeks after the famous Undertaker match, Foley had another Hell game in a cell, this time with Kane Monday evening. And yes, he fell out of the cell, though this time it was about half way, which was even higher than the top rope.

Around 2002, someone came to mind and a match Undertaker-Brock Lesnar was apparently designed as part of a recovery project for the Cell match. It was just an old school, a very little WWE-style cage match, with Undertaker hitting a gusher and bleeding visibly in Lesnar's mouth at one point. The match never left the cage, there was not even a big teasing fall, and it was great.

When blood was banned five years later, as WWE took on a more family-oriented role, Hell in a Cell became more and more dependent on stunts. It took a long time; there was a limit to what you could do inside the cage, and before the change of direction, the WWE had a new, much larger cage, which seemed high enough that no one would ever jump. That ended up changing too, with Shane McMahon coming out of the top with a nudge on a (very narrow) pad carefully disguised as a table during WrestleMania 2016. Sponsors can find the wrestlers cut themselves with sterile razors to be barbarians, but the CEO's son playing the wrestler in the most stupid way and repeatedly jumping cages 20 feet tall is fine.

But the biggest blow to match cell was undoubtedly when WWE decided to make Hell in a Cell the centerpiece of an eponymous annual event. Since 2009, so for the past ten years, quarrels have not developed organically for epic cage matches. Be that as it may, there are usually a few matches stuck inside the cell, and with so many stories that do not justify high stakes, they are all associated. Why put your body on the line for that?

David Bixenspan is a freelance writer from Brooklyn, NY, who co-hosts the Between The Sheets podcast every Monday on BetweenTheSheetsPod.com and wherever podcasts are available. You can follow him on Twitter at @davidbix and see his portfolio at Clippings.me/davidbix.