If you’re looking for the new House to Astonish episode, then you’ll find it the next post down.  Reviews this evening, and a couple of music posts upcoming in the week.  (Um, we’re running a bit late again.)  But now… a wrestling pay-per-view that even the WWE can’t seem to summon up much interest in.

Hell in a Cell has a dreadful slot on the PPV schedule.  Generally, the company has tried to go back to one show a month.  But for some reason this is an exception.  It’s only been two weeks since Night of Champions, and it’s only another three weeks until Bragging Rights, a Raw-versus-Smackdown theme show that died in 2009 and seems unlikely to do any better in 2010.

A two-week build-up is problematic to start with.  And on top of that, the company has had other things to worry about, with Smackdown jumping networks to its new home on Syfy.  American viewers baffled as to how a professional wrestling show ended up on that network in the first place can at least take comfort in knowing that NXT has been booted off American television altogether – though masochists can still see it on the internet.

Hell in a Cell is basically a glorified cage match.  Until relatively recently, the company has managed to keep it as a big draw by maintaining its mystique – HiaC matches could generally be relied on to coincide with major storyline points, and to feature good matches or at least some ludicrous but memorable stunt sequence.  Giving it a defined slot on the PPV calendar for a B-list show has damaged that mystique; it was a bad move to do several HiaC matches on last year’s show, let alone to do them for no particular storyline reason.

This year, the show is even more of an afterthought, and the company has (at time of writing) yet to even announce a full card for the show.  All they’re doing here is damaging a reasonably valuable gimmick.  It’s all a bit misconceived.

Anyway.  The matches that have been announced…

1.  WWE Title, Hell in a Cell: Randy Orton v. Sheamus. Orton is the defending babyface champion (well, antihero champion, at least).  He won the title in a six-way elimination match at the last show, and this is Sheamus’ obligatory rematch.  Which is the problem, really – it’s the obligatory rematch, and the main concern has to been to portray Orton as a strong champion.  For the long term, that’s sensible; but it’s hardly a storyline which was begging for a cage match.  In fact, it’s hardly a storyline at all.

Now, I like both these guys – Sheamus is a pretty effective main event heel, and likely to be at the top of the card for a good few years.  After an unconvincing start, Orton has settled into his antihero role.  They’ll probably have a good cage match.  It probably won’t be memorable enough to live up to the reputation that Hell in a Cell had built up over the years, but if you regard it as a gimmick in decline, and you assume that the aim is to cash in its remaining value over a couple of pay-per-views, then I suppose that’s not a fatal concern.

Orton only just won the title, and he’s being positioned as the new lead babyface on Raw, so it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that he’s retaining – another problem when it comes to building up interest.

2.  World Heavyweight Title, Hell in a Cell: Kane v. the Undertaker. Smackdown’s main feud is a weird storyline that doesn’t seem to be taking.  The basic idea is that the Undertaker’s younger brother Kane beat him up and left him in a coma.  With big brother out of the way, Kane proceeds to become world champion.  Undertaker returns, but he’s not the man he used to be, and Kane is now the dominant brother.  So far, not completely without merit, although it involves booking Undertaker as the underdog, which is not really what fans like about him.

Kane already beat the Undertaker and retained the title on the last show.  But now, to prove he’s absolutely dominant, he’s given the Undertaker a rematch.  And this, in fact, also makes some sense, because Hell in a Cell used to be Undertaker’s signature gimmick match.  So Kane wants to prove that he’s definitively replaced his big brother.  To be fair to the writers, when you boil it down to its essentials, you can see what they were going for.

Somewhere in here, though, we have vaguely-formed stuff about magic.  So this time, the outcome may be different… because the Undertaker has brought back his old manager Paul Bearer and his magic urn, restoring the Undertaker’s magical powers.  Yes, quite.  Paul Bearer is a living cartoon, and weirdly compelling in the way he throws himself into the role, but I do think there’s a problem in trying to build drama around this sort of stuff for a 2010 audience.  It just seems out of tone with the rest of the show.  Then again, if Undertaker really is coming up for retirement, there’s something to be said for going back to the traditional act for a final run.  They’re basically telling the audience that this time they’ll get the Undertaker schtick they want.  It might work.  After all, part of the problem so far has been that they’ve been casting Undertaker against type.

The storyline seems to lead naturally to Undertaker winning – there’s not much point in re-powering him only to lose again.  Since that would seem to draw a line under the story, I wouldn’t be surprised if Undertaker demolished Kane comprehensively, so that they can use an injury angle to avoid the unwanted coda of a rematch.

As I said last time, though, Undertaker and Kane have wrestled many times and it rarely makes for a great match.  I don’t really expect things to be much different here.

3.  John Cena v. Wade Barrett. The other major match on Raw.  On paper, this is quite important.  Barrett is the leader of the Nexus faction, who’ve been feuding with Cena for months.  In theory, the stipulations here are that if Barrett wins, Cena joins Nexus (presumably to take orders); if Cena wins, Nexus disbands.  The other Nexus members are banned from ringside under penalty of Barrett automatically forfeiting the match, so it’s supposed to be a one-on-one match.

This makes it a big deal for Wade Barrett, the winner of the first season of NXT, who has been running the Nexus faction ever since.  He’s had a few singles matches (more than the rest of Nexus), but he usually appears as part of the pack.  After all, despite being a main event heel, he’s still a rookie; common sense dictates that you protect him as much as possible on television and get him as much experience as possible working matches at live shows.  At some point, though, he needs to have a major singles match with another main eventer, and this is that point.  My instinct is that Barrett has great potential but doesn’t quite have that main event aura when he wrestles.  But he might learn quickly, it’s happened before.

This could actually go either way; the company seems to be writing Nexus as though they’ve run their course, and this may indeed be a way of drawing a line under the faction.  On the other hand, if they’re serious about Barrett as a top heel – and they need to be, given the roster depth problems these days – he really needs to win a major match.  There could be at least a few weeks of entertainment in Cena as a member of Nexus trying to sabotage the group (or, perhaps, it could lead in a roundabout way to a Cena heel turn down the line).  That’s the result I’d rather see, but I’m not betting on it.

4.  US Title, submissions count anywhere: Daniel Bryan v. The Miz v. John Morrison. A truly mystifying piece of booking.  The excellent Daniel Bryan finally won the US Title on the last show from his nemesis the Miz.  So Miz is entitled to a rematch.  But, for no readily apparent reason, we’re doing it as a three-way also featuring John Morrison, who used to be Miz’s tag team partner ages ago before turning babyface.  And we’re doing it as a submissions-only match.  With submissions counting anywhere in the building.  For literally no apparent reason.

Whoever heard of a submissions-count-anywhere match? “Falls count anywhere” crops up from time to time, and it’s basically an excuse to do a brawl without having to worry about getting counted out, and with the option of doing ridiculous stuff backstage or in the stands.  But submission matches are about technical wrestling.  It’s two gimmicks that don’t belong in the same match.

On top of that, it’s two babyfaces against one heel, and only the defending champion, Bryan, has any track record of using submissions.  The whole thing just makes no sense.  The three wrestlers are good, and I’m sure they’ll get something out of it, but it’s just a stupid idea.

Bryan only just won two weeks ago, so he ought to retain.  Miz certainly shouldn’t get the title back, because he’s moving up to challenge for the world title.  Morrison wouldn’t really make sense either; he’s been US champion before and there’s no real benefit to putting the title back on him.  So Bryan ought to win, hopefully leading to a reasonably extended title reign to help establish him as an upper midcard guy.

5.  Divas Title: Michelle McCool v. Natalya. This is the unified women’s title, as created on the last show.  Michelle McCool and Layla El are still doing their “unofficial co-champions” gimmick, but since it’s Michelle who unified the titles, she’s now recognised as the official champion.  The challenger this time is Natalya, who’s been working as the Hart Dynasty’s manager for a while – but it seems they’ve belatedly remembered that she can wrestle.

Again, unifying the titles only to do a title change two weeks later seems like it would be an odd move.  On the other hand, they seem to be doing a Hart Dynasty break-up, and this would give Natalya something else to do.  My bet would still be that McCool retains (perhaps with interference to set up a rematch).  Women’s matches on PPV are rarely anything to write home about, though this could be at the better end of the scale.

Worth buying? Well… Orton/Sheamus is a decent match on paper, and it’ll be interesting to see how Cena/Barrett turns out.  But this is a show where I’d be happy enough to wait and read the results.