On the latest editions of “The Ross Report” podcast and “The Ric Flair Show”, hosts Jim Ross and Ric Flair, respectively review the women’s Hell in a Cell bout at WWE Hell in a Cell. You can listen to JR’s show at this link, and Ric Flair’s show at this link.
Jim Ross On the Women’s Title Match Match at Hell in a Cell:
The week is crazy, but I did find time to watch Hell in a Cell. I thought it was a good show. I didn’t have any issues with the show whatsoever. I thought it was solid, pretty much from start to finish. Pretty much not like a lot of people, because of my time in the business, as a former EVP of Talent Relations in WWE, I always start with one thing: did the talent bust their a**? Did they give it their all? Did they phone it in? Did they work hard and smart? I thought the talent did a great job on Sunday night in Boston; didn’t see anybody phoning it in, but there are a lot of subjective things that I would like to talk about that happened on the show; the match order. There are some people taking an exception to the fact that two women in wrestling, Sasha Banks lost the title in her hometown; very surprising, to Charlotte. I don’t know if Sasha is hurt; what the story is behind the scenes, none of my business, don’t know or care to know. I was very surprised at the finish. I thought that Sasha was going to make a triumphant return in her hometown in a first ever Hell in a Cell match in Women’s history and win; I was wrong. The unpredictability in pro wrestling has always been an amazing facet to the genre, and WWE pulled that surprise card, which was not what they wanted to see. They wanted to see their fan favorite to win. I can promise you this; if you go to a New England Patriots game, and Tom Brady is Quarterbacking, then you know that if the Pats lose, the hometown crowd is going to be P.O’d, but I had no issues with the women closing the show; thought it was very marketable, and most people would agree that it was very conversational, so my question would be; why wasn’t it promoted more thoroughly going into the event? That was the only downside of the scenario that I personally saw that women closed the show with little advanced fan fare, but that was the only take I had against that deal.
Ric Flair On the Women’s Title Match on Hell in a Cell
Everybody was there. Everybody, and now, they knew they had the pressure on them but they opened up strong from start to finish. Actually, they were told that they had to change some stuff because they thought Sasha got hurt during the body of the match, so a lot of it was on the fly. So, be told by a referee what they couldn’t do going forward, so it was phenomenal, I was there, I couldn’t be more proud. She [Charlotte] is the greatest; Forbes Magazine said it best, she is just unbelievable. A lot of decisions, going back to Undertaker and Brock going into New Orleans [Wrestlemania 31] were made at the last hour of the day, so the call was made, I didn’t know Charlotte was going to win, I prefer not to know, I just know that Vince McMahon is going to do what he always does, and whatever is best for business. They put themselves through everything that the guys do and more; the Power Bomb on Sasha through the announce table, that actually had me, I thought the match was over then. I think when they loaded her on the cart that the match was over. It appeared that they were trying to recreate the Mick Foley at King of the Ring with Hell in a Cell at the stretcher spot.
