It’s Hell Week here at With Spandex, and we’re bringing you caged content every day as a build to the pay-per-view event named after a match that’s just like a cage match, but with more cage. We plan on surrounding you with Hell in a Cell-themed content, much like the 25-foot-tall structure that surrounds the ring and ringside area. Enjoy!
We know the structure is demonic (Michael Cole said so), we know who made it famous (hat tip to Mick Foley’s back with a nod to HBK and the Undertaker), and we know it’s now an annual event (this Sunday, October 8th) after being established as such in 2009. We wish we didn’t know about the times the Cell was used haphazardly to raise the stakes on a feud (see: Undertaker vs. Kane, 2010), or the time Bossman was hanged in the damn thing.
What we don’t know is how the 25 tons of hyperbolic fence could have been used prior to its introduction in 1997. Wake up people, it’s Hell Week and we’re having some fantasies.
Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart
How do you raise the stakes from an Iron Man match? An Iron Man match inside a Hell in a Cell, durr. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart belong near the top of nearly every “best ring worker” list and to see these two figure out a way to make the Cell work would have been *Italian chef kiss*. Imagine a tie game heading into the two-minute warning with both men climbing to the top of the structure from opposite sides for the finish. Tell me that doesn’t give you goosebumps. Tell me! You can’t!
I promise it would have turned out better than this:
(With all due respect to The Golden Opportunists YouTube channel)
Roddy Piper vs. Mr. Perfect
Call this one a dark horse, but Piper’s brand of brawling and ability to increase the believability factor in his biggest feuds would make for a great Hell in a Cell competitor. Add in Mr. Perfect, who is hands-down the wrestler from his era that I would most like to see performing in the current WWE climate.
Piper would have chewed through the fence if needed to, Mr. Perfect would have bumped so splendidly all over the place, and I’m dying to know just how Hennig would have hung his towel on the cell. These two went all-out when it mattered most, and if Hell in a Cell would have been a thing in 1991, you can bet their match inside its confines would have mattered.
Trish Stratus vs. Lita
The Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks Hell in a Cell match from last year is a testament to the rise of women wrestling in WWE. But if the powers that be hadn’t saved the event for 2016, the first women inside the fence would have had to be Lita vs. Trish Stratus.
The athleticism between these two would have made for a genius pairing. Picture suicide dives, imagine hurricanranas, visualize the plethora of diving crossbodies, all in the confines of the Cell. The women’s revolution might have started earlier than it did if we’d been given this match.
Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage
Their feud over the WWF Championship and Miss Elizabeth was red hot. This is the kind of program designed for Hell in a Cell, keeping Elizabeth out of harm’s way while preventing Curt Hennig from interfering on Flair’s behalf. Savage would have dropped an elbow from up top, and I would give anything to see the Nature Boy wear the crimson mask on top of the cage.
The closest Flair ever got to a Hell in a Cell was WCW’s Thundercage in 1994, which looks awfully similar to Hell in a Cell, although nobody really remembers it. RIP Thundercage (but long live War Games. Seriously, where art thou War Games tho?)
Hardy Boyz vs. Edge and Christian vs. The Dudley Boyz
This list is getting greedy, but I have no regrets. Imagine the innovators of not only the ladder match but also the tables, ladders, and chairs match also being the innovators of the Hell in a Cell match. If that’s too much innovation for your brains right now, then step away from the column. If not, join me in imagining the same stunts pulled in TLC being doubled down on in the Cell.
Edge dangling from the top of the cage? I don’t know how he got there either, but let’s jut imagine. We’ve seen double- and triple-stacks of tables, but can I get six or seven? How many is too many tables?
Your turn, With Spandex universe. Which old school feud would you most like to see in Satan’s Structure?
