CM Punk and Drew McIntyre put on the Hell in a Cell match for the ages at WWE Bad Blood. Peter Klein breaks down that match and everything else from WWE Bad Blood including The Rock coming out after Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes' tag team match.
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00:00Say this all the time, I need to make that one longer, because you boy needed some water
00:10after yelling about the NFL for a minute and now we need to get that one back, need to
00:16extend that a little bit.
00:17But it is!
00:18WWE Bad Blood went down this weekend from Atlanta, Georgia and a lot of talking points
00:23coming out of it.
00:24So, let's break it down, shall we?
00:27The night begins with Drew McIntyre against CM Punk and I thought this was exactly what
00:34it needed to be.
00:36I thought it was an excellent, excellent Hell in a Cell match.
00:39I thought every bit of brutality kind of meant something.
00:42There wasn't a lot of egregious stuff, just to be egregious, and I think we know what
00:46promotion I'm talking to when I say that, but I thought that they were, they did a really
00:51good job of kind of stringing everything together and it wasn't just a plunder match, it was
00:55a psychologically thought out Hell in a Cell match with still enough blood and violence
01:00to justify it.
01:02I thought that, again, it got across the seriousness of the stipulation and made Hell in a Cell
01:09feel like just an absolute badass thing that you really needed to worry about and it makes
01:15it this, like, absolute playground of just violence and something that will change you
01:20for a bit.
01:21And I've said before, like, I know Crown Jewel is coming up and I know it's getting
01:25into Survivor Series, which is getting into Royal Rumble, which is getting into WrestleMania.
01:28I think Punk and Drew have to sit it out for a bit.
01:31I think you have to sell the repercussions of this for a while and do video things or
01:37whatever vignettes you need to do, but I don't think you have these guys on TV, especially
01:41like you can, it's easy to just, like, go away from them because Raw's going to two
01:46hours now, so it's easy to just kind of pivot from those guys and do something else and
01:51let them kind of sell the effects of the match that they were just in.
01:55And then I thought after, like, Punk stumbling and needing the oxygen and all of that.
01:59I thought that was really, really good.
02:02And then also, I thought the commentary of that match, and for the most part of the show,
02:08I thought the commentary was phenomenal.
02:09I thought Cole and Graves did a good job of setting up, again, the severity of the match
02:13type that they were in and the aggressive nature that both guys were portraying.
02:20And I thought that they added to that match spectacularly.
02:23The only thing I will say about the commentary is that I do wish Wade Barrett was on the
02:29desk there.
02:31Not that there was anything really lacking, but just, again, because one of the things
02:35that I am always saying is you need to keep this brand split, you know, split.
02:40And you need to, if you want to do this, you have to take it seriously.
02:44And Graves and Cole have amazing chemistry together, and they're awesome, and obviously
02:48they follow the product and all of those things, but they are both the SmackDown guys.
02:53And so I do think you need the raw dude there, at least to just lend a bit of the raw voice
02:59so that it doesn't just seem like it's the SmackDown guy and then, well, it's not really,
03:02it's all WWE, and then all of it gets blurred and it doesn't work.
03:05So that's why I loved it when the initial brand split, they had the two different broadcast
03:11teams, and I understand you are limited with that when Joe Tessitore is doing college football
03:17or doing boxing or both.
03:20So there is a limitation with that, and so I think the compromise is getting Wade Barrett
03:24on there and it's a three-man booth, and that's how you go about it.
03:27But that is the only knock.
03:28I thought it was really good.
03:30And then after that, we kind of dragged for a while, I thought.
03:34Bayley and Nia was alright.
03:36It wasn't amazing.
03:38It was good enough.
03:39Like, there wasn't anything awful about it, I didn't think.
03:41I thought it was fine.
03:42It definitely is setting up now, Tiffany Stratton against Nia Jax, and I don't know if the
03:47crowd is overly enthused to be cheering for either of them there.
03:51So it's a weird spot, I think.
03:54But I do think part of this now sets up something interesting with Bayley, because they showed
04:00before that, like, they were up in the box, the luxury box, with the tag team champion,
04:08the women's tag team champions, and Naomi, the hosts for the evening, which, what hosting
04:13they did.
04:14But they did a thing where they were saying, like, okay, women's championship matchup next,
04:19who do we got?
04:20Like, how's Bayley gonna do?
04:21And Naomi's like, yeah, my girl Bayley, she's got this, it's gonna be great, it's gonna
04:24be awesome.
04:25Oh, Bianca, what do you think?
04:26She's definitely gonna try hard.
04:28And there was a glare from Naomi, and I do think maybe we're setting up a tag team feud
04:34now with Naomi and Bayley going up against Bianca and Jade.
04:38And I think that could be interesting, because this tag team division just needs some stories
04:43right now, and needs some interest.
04:45And they're starting to get it a little bit, like the Kabuki Warriors and all of them,
04:50and they are getting it, they're trying, at least, with, like, Carter and Chance and the
04:55whatever they're calling the Sonia DeVille group and all of them, but this would be a
04:59good one at the top to let the other ones kind of figure out what they are doing and
05:02building up their storylines.
05:04So I think that could be the pivot, and I think it could be really interesting.
05:08Priest against Balor was alright.
05:10It felt like Raw.
05:11It felt like a Monday Night Raw match.
05:14They did make Priest feel like a bit of a beast when he's going out there and everyone's
05:17running in, and he's disposing of all of them and crushing them, and then he ends up getting
05:20the win.
05:21So, hopefully, this was enough beating down of the Judgment Day to allow Priest to go
05:27off and do something else.
05:28I think there needs to be a touch of a remake with him.
05:32You can't get too far away from the character that he is, but all of it still screams Judgment
05:38Day, because that is the group that he is closely associated with, not just because
05:44of recency, but also, like, it's the biggest thing he has done in this company.
05:48And so, I think that there needs to be just a slight little retool of him so that it doesn't
05:53look so connected, because I do think you now need to separate the two groups, the group
05:58from the guy.
05:59Triple H comes out for a massive announcement, and it is the Crown Jewel, where the undisputed
06:07WWE Champion is going to face the World Heavyweight Champion, and ditto on the women's side as
06:12well.
06:13Neither title will be on the line, but the winners will be crowned the Crown Jewels of
06:172024.
06:19It is what it is.
06:20Like, it's not, um...
06:23At least when they said, oh, groundbreaking announcement, it wasn't a thing that was teased
06:25for weeks and weeks as something that would change the industry, and then it was just
06:28kind of a bit of a, oh, okay.
06:31It'll get a couple of interesting matches.
06:34It is curious that you would have two champions lose on big shows like that, but I think that
06:42there's an interesting storytelling device that can come with all of that, and so I think
06:47if done well, it is something that I think you can feel confident in, and actually do
06:53quite a bit with.
06:54So, I think there could be something there.
06:56It is something that is also, if it was the past regime running it, I think you would
07:01have some major concerns about how it was all being put together, and how it was all
07:07being booked, and all of that.
07:08But I think that this is a creative department now that gives you the confidence that they're
07:13going to be able to take this seriously and actually use it in a way that helps further
07:19a few things.
07:20So I think it could be interesting, but it doesn't necessarily have my interest piqued
07:23right now.
07:24I think it's like a lot of things in wrestling, where you're doing it for the first time,
07:27so you have to really do it to make us take it seriously.
07:31And then the Gunther Goldberg stuff, it's fine.
07:33It was a raw segment after that.
07:35I would imagine at some point we get some kind of Goldberg involvement in something,
07:39and he comes back and there's a whatever, but yeah.
07:42Live Against Rhea, it was alright.
07:43It was mainly a stage for other storyline things to happen.
07:49And that was... like, you have the hell in the cell at the beginning, and then obviously
07:52you end the night with Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns in a tag team match, and The Rock comes
07:58out.
07:59So there are big things that happened on this show, but like 95% of this show felt like
08:04Raw or Smackdown.
08:05Like, this did not feel like a premium live event, and I understand it is kind of a secondary
08:11one, but this... they had just enough on here to make it not skippable, and I am not going
08:19to tell WWE their shows need to be longer, or anything like that, but getting into these
08:25rhythms where these are five match shows, and a couple things on them are going to happen
08:30that are going to be interesting, the rest of it is just going to kind of be a... basically
08:33a souped-up Monday Night Raw, and we're going to move forward with that.
08:36Like, I just...
08:37I worry that these are coming a little skippable, and not maybe meaning as much.
08:42And again, it's coming from an era where some of these shows were four and a half hours,
08:46and too much was jammed onto them, and we were trying to force everyone onto everything,
08:50and like, we're getting a world title match on Raw tonight, so there is... you are still
08:55getting a lot of very good content, and it is making the weeks and the TVs feel special,
08:59and all of that, but it is...
09:00I do think we are taking away from some of these a little bit, anyway.
09:06But yeah, Liv and Rhea, it was alright.
09:07It was about the story.
09:08Raquel Rodriguez comes out, it makes complete sense.
09:10She has history with both, she is a good kind of the Diesel to Liv Morgan's Shawn Michaels,
09:16she is a little on the nose with Camille and Mercedes Monet, but that's a thing that's
09:22been done in wrestling for a hundred years.
09:24So I think this role fits Raquel better.
09:28I think that she is better suited as the big bully heel, rather than just trying to be
09:34like the big smiling, oh man, boy, I'm really strong, aren't I, baby face.
09:39Like, she seems like a legitimately nice person, it just hasn't been able to translate into
09:43a character that gets people invested.
09:45So, what's the thing you do from that?
09:47Just pivot and be huge and terrifying.
09:50And she can do that, there's a thing now with her and Liv as a group, you have a ready-made
09:57storyline with all the different years of things that they did with Raquel and Rhea
10:02Ripley, and how that can now grow, and then you still have a little Rhea-Liv hanging over,
10:08if you want to get to that at like a WrestleMania time, or something like that.
10:12So it's a pairing that makes complete sense.
10:14And then the main event, it was Cody and Roman taking on Jacob Fatu and Solo, and there
10:19was the run-ins, and Jimmy Uso is back, and we are all very excited about this.
10:26And there's the hug with Roman, and so we have now, and then The Rock comes out at the
10:29end.
10:30We have firmly started to now push this into high gear, and get this storyline rolling,
10:38as we push towards WarGames in Vancouver, and then onward towards WrestleMania.
10:44And so, the first seeds were planted here, and I am very excited to see where it goes.
10:50But yeah, for the most part, you have a blow-off match in Hell in a Cell, and then the rest
10:55of it all just kind of felt like we're advancing for something else.
11:00And the rest of it just felt like a really, really souped-up Raw or SmackDown.
11:04So it was an enjoyable, what, it ended up being close to three hours?
11:08It was an enjoyable show, I enjoyed it.
11:11I was entertained, but I did not come away from it thinking, like, man, we just saw a
11:15premium live event.
11:17What a night for the WWE.
11:18Just like, yeah, this was fun, can't wait to see what happens next.
11:22Which I guess is episodic television, but it didn't feel like a big, a big event by
11:27any stretch of the imagination.