{"id":34536,"date":"2016-11-04T16:38:49","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T21:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=34536"},"modified":"2016-11-04T16:38:49","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T21:38:49","slug":"mcmahons-take-top-five-ways-wwe-mishandled-sasha-charlotte-put-hell-cell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/11\/04\/mcmahons-take-top-five-ways-wwe-mishandled-sasha-charlotte-put-hell-cell\/","title":{"rendered":"MCMAHON&#8217;S TAKE: The Top Five Ways WWE mishandled Sasha and Charlotte being put in a Hell in a Cell"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3880313911\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Sasha Banks and Charlotte made history on Sunday night, becoming not only the first women to wrestle in a Hell in a Cell match, but they also became the first women to main event a WWE pay-per-view.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Unfortunately here we sit, nearly one week later, with what was supposed to be a monumental moment for women\u2019s wrestling feeling more like a footnote. A footnote might be the best-case scenario. At worst, this could be remembered as a fumbled effort, which won\u2019t lead to more opportunities for WWE\u2019s women and, in Vince McMahon\u2019s eyes, could send them back near the bottom of the priority list.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The thing that stings most about that potential is that the match flopped for reasons way outside of Sasha and Charlotte. If WWE allowed them to do what they do best \u2014 tell a story inside those ring ropes \u2014 Sasha and Charlotte could have torn the house down in a really good main event. Instead, they handcuffed them to this idea that the Hell in a Cell match was a reward.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">WWE botched this main event with its poor booking and poor planning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Here are the top-five ways WWE mishandled the Charlotte-Sasha main event:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>1. The Stretcher Spot<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There were so many things wrong with this portion of the match. Let\u2019s start from the beginning, though. It immediately, in the first few minutes of the match, defined the women down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Men go through tables all the time. Hell, Shane McMahon jumped off the top of the cell and drove a 50-year-old Undertaker through a table just a few months ago at WrestleMania.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This match was \u201cin jeopardy\u201d of not happening because of a table spot? Granted it was a scary table spot, with Sasha\u2019s upper body folding up like a suitcase at her neck, but it was still a table spot.<\/span><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-3377005753\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So immediately, from the very beginning, the women were defined as being weaker than the men. That\u2019s a terrible way to begin this \u201chistory making\u201d match.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Then the stretcher spot itself took way too long to pull off. It dragged and it took the crowd out of the moment. Everyone knew Sasha was getting up off the stretcher and the match was going to continue. Every single person in the building knew it. There was no anticipation. It didn\u2019t add anything to the match other than to tell us that women can\u2019t take table spots, and men can.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Lastly, the whole idea of the spot to begin with takes you away from the match. It\u2019s hard for me to suspend my disbelief when you see someone strapped to a stretcher, being wheeled to an ambulance with a neck brace on, and all of a sudden just because she wants to she gets up, rips off the neck brace and marches to the ring. Meanwhile, the doctors and EMTs are just shrugging their shoulders in the aisle as if to say, \u201cwell, I guess she\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">We\u2019ve seen real injuries like this before, both in pro sports and pro wrestling, and it\u2019s very scary. If an NFL player injured his neck on the field and while he\u2019s being wheeled to a nearby hospital, just decided he was going to sit up and get back in the game, it would never be allowed. It feels weird even writing that because the situation itself is so preposterous.\u00a0 You need to suspend disbelief to really enjoy pro wrestling, but an angle like this insults the intelligence of the viewer while at the same time defining down the two women in the match. This was an awful idea.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>2. The Foley Highlights<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mick Foley could have had his career ended when he wrestled the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match back in 1998. You\u2019ve all seen the highlights. And in case you hadn\u2019t WWE ran them a handful of times during this show and in the weeks leading up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Why?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Sasha and Charlotte didn\u2019t attempt anything close to what Foley did against the Undertaker, and that\u2019s fine. It kept them safe and means no one had their career ended in Boston on Sunday night. That\u2019s a good thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, maybe there was supposed to be something to that if you believe Ric Flair, who said\u00a0on a radio show this week that Charlotte (or Sasha) was going to attempt some sort of big moonsault, perhaps off the top of the Cell, but it was nixed during the match because they feared Sasha was going to get hurt.<\/span><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-1890921600\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If that\u2019s true &#8211; and who knows if it is, but if that\u2019s true &#8211; I\u2019m much happier. Like I said, the last thing\u00a0I wanted to see was someone wrestle their last match on Sunday because of some expectation they felt they needed to live up to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">By showing the Foley highlights, WWE inevitably showed us again that the women aren\u2019t on the same playing field as the men. They again defined down Charlotte and Sasha Banks. Neither one of them did what Foley did in that match, so why remind the audience over and over again? Why perpetuate this expectation that someone has to come close to death in a Hell in a Cell match (for real)?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The message it ultimately sent, with no big spots, is that the men in these matches have attempted death-defying spots, and the women didn\u2019t. So once again, the men are on another level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But let\u2019s say they had some big spots planned that were canceled, it\u2019s still a bad decision. Charlotte and Sasha are far too important to that division, and the entire company, to be attempting moonsaults off the top of cages. That goes back to my premise that the Cell was a bad idea from the very beginning. There was no good way out of this match, and WWE proved that.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>3. The Finish<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This match shouldn\u2019t have gone on last. Nothing against Sasha and Charlotte here, but the babyface lost, in her hometown, to a move that wasn\u2019t even Charlotte\u2019s most over finisher.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If they were dead set on putting this match on last for its place in history, then have the babyface go over. That ends Charlotte\u2019s pay-per-view winning streak \u2026 well, so be it. If you don\u2019t want to end her streak, don\u2019t end the show with this match. Plain and simple.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I\u2019m not one of these people who\u00a0believes you always need to end the show with a babyface going over. That makes your product far too predictable. But in this case, given the attention this match was going to get and the fact that you were in the champion\u2019s hometown, the only way that match should have gone on last is if Sasha was going to retain her title.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Instead, you got a really flat finish. The match ended on Charlotte\u2019s secondary finisher and the crowd didn\u2019t want that. It was flat.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>4. The Triple \u201cMain Event\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For the most part, they did a good job giving each Hell in a Cell match something different in order to set it apart, but this was still way too much of a good thing. This \u201cspecial\u201d moment was the third time we saw the Cell on the show. Granted, it was the first time the women were wrestling inside of it, but it was still the third such match on the card.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">They did some good things with the entrance, keeping the Cell up and lowering it after they were in the ring to add effect and also give Charlotte and Sasha a chance to brawl on the outside, which none of the other matches had, but the triple main event idea definitely stole some thunder for the show\u2019s actual main event.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">WWE likes to do this with WrestleMania now, too. They\u2019ll tell you that there are two or even three main events.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">No.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There\u2019s one main event, and it\u2019s what closes the show.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But when you\u2019re seeing a structure for the third time in three hours, it\u2019s hard for that third time to feel any extra special. If they really wanted to make a Charlotte-Sasha Hell in a Cell match a special attraction, eliminate the other cell matches and book them in the one, true main event. But (I\u2019m guessing) Vince McMahon didn\u2019t want to do that. Even backstage, it feels like there were things being done to undercut the women.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>5. Hell in a Cell isn\u2019t even the best match for Charlotte and Sasha<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If you\u2019re reading this, you probably saw what Sasha Banks and Bayley did when they were the main events on NXT shows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Did that need a Cell?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There was never a purpose for the cell to begin with. Noting about this rivalry needed to be contained and, for the most part, no one needed to be kept out. The cell was there because it\u2019s October, and that\u2019s a truly terrible reason to have a Hell in a Cell match.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Not only that, but the Cell was more of an obstacle than anything else. Sasha Banks and Charlotte are two very athletic wrestlers. They can do, and have done, some innovative things in the ring. Let them go do that. If they needed to make it different than their SummerSlam match, give it another stipulation. I mentioned this in one of my earlier columns, but make it a submission match. The Banks Statement vs. The Figure Eight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">WWE could have definitely used a match like that, with those two, in a main-event spot. That would have torn the house down and it wouldn\u2019t have defined any of the women as being below the men. No one would have needed a neck brace after a table spot<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Super Shane McMahon could have tried a shooting star press off the top of the cage with live grenades in his pockets and he wouldn\u2019t have been on a stretcher for as long as Sasha Banks was.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In wrestling, it\u2019s almost always about perception. And thanks to WWE\u2019s poor planning, the perception of this \u201chistoric match\u201d was disappointing and let down the women involved and their fans.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"entry-content clearfix\">\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Mike McMahon reviews TNA Impact Wrestling every week for PWTorch.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikeMcMahonPW.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1169632959\"><div id=\"pwtor-1148880797\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Sasha Banks and Charlotte made history on Sunday night, becoming not only the first women to wrestle in a Hell in a Cell match, but they also became the first women to main event a <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/11\/04\/mcmahons-take-top-five-ways-wwe-mishandled-sasha-charlotte-put-hell-cell\/\" title=\"MCMAHON&#8217;S TAKE: The Top Five Ways WWE mishandled Sasha and Charlotte being put in a Hell in a Cell\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,52,4011,53],"tags":[467,103,254,213],"class_list":["post-34536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-opnionandanalysis","category-mcmahons-take","category-opinion_stafftakes","tag-charlotte","tag-hiac","tag-mick-foley","tag-sasha-banks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2016\/10\/HellinaCell_cage_3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34537,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34536\/revisions\/34537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}