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

WWE Championship Match

Jinder Mahal (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

What we learned: I don’t know how many more times I can write this, but we learned here that the Jinder Mahal experiment STILL isn’t quite done. With WWE touring India very soon, this wasn’t a surprise but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. The fact that this match was pretty bad only makes things worse.

It’s never a good thing when you have a Hell in a Cell pay-per-view and the WWE Championship isn’t decided inside of it. Throw in the fact that not only was the WWE Championship Match not the last match of the night, it wasn’t even the penultimate match. Again, that can’t be a good thing.

I just find it so hard to get interested in a Jinder Mahal match. They’re just boring, and even with somebody as talented and exciting as Shinsuke Nakamura across the ring from him, I just can’t get into it. Not for one second in this match did I ever get truly excited and sit up in my seat, and I also never once thought that Shinsuke Nakamura was going to walk out of Detroit as the WWE Champion. These two have no chemistry in the ring together, and as much as I wanted this to be at least decent, it came nowhere close.

The pace was pretty slow throughout, there were so many mistakes and the two just seemed to be going through the motions until it was time for The Singh Brothers to get involved, which you knew was inevitable. Sure, they got chucked from the ringside area by the ageless Charles Robinson (yes, I was focused more on the fact that Lil Naitch hasn’t aged a second since his days in WCW than I was on the match) but it was too little and too late as their last attempt to get in the ring gave Jinder just enough time to recover and pick up the victory.

What’s next: What’s next is more time with Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion. Here’s a fun fact for you: as of this writing, Jinder Mahal has now been WWE Champion for 141 days, putting him in the top 25 for total days holding what’s supposed to be the most prestigious title in the industry. Who are some of the people below him on this list? Just guys like Edge, Chris Jericho, Big Show, Daniel Bryan and Mick Foley. No big deal … except that it’s a huge deal.

This was kind of funny at first but this has turned sour and is hurting the overall product. NEWS FLASH: Jinder Mahal is from freaking Canada. He’s not even from India. The people over there, who obviously know this information, aren’t going to care that he’s the WWE Champion when the tour gets there. This hasn’t helped the WWE Network subscriber count like they hoped it would, and it’s time for this experiment to be over.

As for Shinsuke Nakamura, he needs something better than this as well. He’s too good in the ring to be jobbing to a 3MB member. Maybe he gets one more shot with the Singhs completely banned from ringside, but do I really want to watch another match with these two?