WWE Hell in a Cell 2017 review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections

What we learned, what we took away and what the future holds for the superstars of SmackDown Live following Sunday night’s WWE Hell in a Cell pay-per-view.

Two decades after WWE introduced Hell in a Cell with Shawn Michaels taking on The Undertaker at Badd Blood, the ninth edition of the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view took place on Sunday night from the all-new Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. While there were a few down moments, the ups certainly outweighed them as the superstars of SmackDown Live took center stage.

The kickoff show was a little better than usual with some good backstage segments and a solid tag match. The segment featuring Daniel Bryan and Tye Dillinger working his way into the United States Championship Match was a little stiff at first, but they certainly got the crowd hyped up as they worked each other’s catchphrases into the conversation at the end. This probably could have been done this past Tuesday night, but it made for an interesting change to the match and gave people something to chat about heading in.

The tag match featuring Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable (they’ve finally got some matching ring gear) taking on The Hype Bros was much better than I thought it was going to be. They worked a good pace and had some nice near falls towards the end of the match. I really enjoy watching Benjamin and Gable together, who picked up the win in this one. As for Mojo and Zack Ryder, it’s time to go ahead and pull the trigger to break these two up. They’ve been building it for quite a while now and we all know it’s coming, so let’s just get it over with so they can have their match on the next kickoff show.

Since we’re here and I’m not going to give the segment its own page, let’s go ahead and talk about the return of The Fashion Files, shall we? As much as I want to join Corey Graves (who was brilliant all night long as always) in hating these, they’re actually starting to grow on me. There is a place for things like this in WWE and while it’s almost sad to see The Ascension dropped to this level, they were pretty damn funny here and almost stole the entire segment from Breezango. The situation still isn’t resolved and we’ll be getting more on Tuesday night, and I’m actually okay with it.

Okay, let’s go ahead and get to the main card. There were four title matches on Sunday night, one of which opened the show inside the Hell in a Cell structure. Let’s get after it.