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There’s no DQ in HIAC

Everyone on Twitter keeps reciting the rules of a Hell In A Cell match:

“...only an in-ring pinfall or submission will ordinarily result in a win [...] and there are no disqualifications.”

They’re reciting these rules because they are mad that the match between Rollins and The Fiend ended in a DQ. But your answer is right there -- there was no DQ because there can’t be a DQ. You can only win by pinfall or submission. No one won. The match was a no-contest because the ref stopped the match. Referee stoppage is entirely different than a DQ and can totally happen in a HIAC match if the ref believes that one of the participants cannot continue the match. The ref had checked on The Fiend a few times after his face was buried by a chair, ladder and toolbox. The Fiend had been laying on his back for a good five minutes, not moving at all. The ref had every reason to believe that The Fiend could not continue at this point and called the match after the sledgehammer hit because if he was already out, there was no way The Fiend would be able to continue after that hit. 

However, the call from the ref to stop the match was poorly timed. He called as soon as Rollins went in with the sledgehammer, and that timing made it seem like it was a DQ. But it was definitely a call to stop the match and not a disqualification of Rollins (again, since there are no DQs in a HIAC match). If DQs were allowed and Rollins had been disqualified, they would have announced a winner. Nothing was announced because The Fiend had been laying on the ground for an extended period of time, almost completely immobile - it was obvious that he was unable to continue.

Some people are mad that nothing was announced. Keep in mind, everyone involved is playing a role. This includes announcers. Rollins nearly fucking murdered The Fiend and it turns out The Fiend was playing possum; the announcers were clearly in shock. Besides, they barely had time to say anything after the stoppage before The Fiend attacked Rollins. Furthermore, the announce team being quiet after a Fiend attack has been a part of the whole story. He attacks from behind and then radio silence because the announce team is scared stiff. We’ve really become spoiled as TV fans, expecting the announce team to feed info to us. You don’t have that at a live show. You have to actually pay attention to the match to know what is going on. No one is on the mic walking you through what just happened. And again, all of Twitter is reciting the rules, so clearly they should know what’s going on for the bell to be rung. It’s like people just expect WWE to “ruin” things and make us angry, so of course, they would end a no-DQ match on a DQ, right? Did it look like a DQ because of the timing on the call from the ref? Yes, but you have to think it through, there are no DQs so what other possible reason could the match have ended? The ref didn’t think The Fiend could continue, and he had no reason not to think that.

In defence of the ref timing it poorly: how often does a match end this way? Not very.  And when matches do end this way, I would argue that it is usually for one of two reasons. Scenario 1: a submission hold that actually knocks someone out. 2: a heel milking an injury to the point of telling the ref they can’t continue in order to force a stop for an ambush on their opponent outside the confines of the match. This is neither of these scenarios. Did the ref know the finish of the match from the beginning? Probably. But in the heat of the moment, you go back to muscle-memory type actions, actions and operations that you’re just used to from years of doing a job. We see it all the time in no-DQ matches when the wrestlers go to the ropes to try to break a submission hold. It’s just something you’re used to doing. The ref called the match after the sledgehammer hit because that’s when he's used to making the call, even if it is a different call, still a knee jerk reaction. But also, he had been checking on The Fiend and The Fiend had been down and motionless for quite a while, so it’s easy to assume that in the ref’s mind, he was thinking, “welp, probably shoulda called it sooner because he clearly couldn’t continue but after that he definitely can’t, so stop the damn match.” 

In hindsight, a ref stoppage due to the ref thinking that The Fiend couldn’t continue was the obvious ending from the moment The Fiend took an unprotected chair shot to the face. You protect your talent, even if it’s part of the storyline. That’s one thing WWE has actually learned over the years. If you can’t DQ the perpetrator of the chair shot because of the constraints of the match, an eventual ref stoppage for the wellbeing of the victim is the only ending (if you can't have a clear winner).

Which brings up another point - why book the match if you don’t want either one to lose? If The Fiend had won, everyone would be screaming that it was too soon and that the Fiend is ruined and the title is ruined, blah, blah, blah. If Rollins had won, even after everything he put The Fiend through, it would have buried the Fiend way too soon. I think the match being booked as a title HIAC match is just unlucky timing. The feud progressed and, oh shit, gimmick PPV time, so they booked themselves into a corner and had to do it. The ending that we saw, was the only logical ending to the match. They should have had Rollins drop the title and just continue the feud with The Fiend in a non-title HIAC match, but Rollins retained and their hands were tied. The match serves to start the ball rolling on what I think will be an eventual Rollins heel turn, while keeping the feud between Rollins and The Fiend going and keeping The Fiend looking strong and terrifying as fuck. Horror villains: you go for the head; Rollins did just that and still couldn’t put away The Fiend.

Another argument is that the match killed the HIAC gimmick. It didn’t. It 100% didn’t. Why? BECAUSE IT WASN’T A DQ FINISH. The match ended within the confines of the rules. Y’all want HIAC with no ref stoppages? Go watch unsanctioned deathmatches. It’s sports entertainment, wrestling -- not murder. Have other HIAC matches been equally or maybe even more brutal? Yes. I’m not sure that anyone has been down as long as The Fiend was without getting pinned for the loss, though. And, as mentioned above, WWE knows they have to protect their talent, and I like to believe the audience has a more vested interest in the wellbeing of the wrestlers now than they did for some of those classic HIAC matches. I like hardcore matches as much as the next person, but I don’t actually want to witness a murder, even if it’s a kayfabe murder. Kayfabe retire someone due to injury? Sure. But not murder. Plus, the refs for those classic matches knew how much the participants could take, how hardcore they were - and the wrestlers were probably conscious and responding to ref checks. The Fiend has had what, one? official match? The ref has no idea what he can endure (but we do now). HIAC is still a viable match to end brutal feuds. The Fiend is supposed to be a superhuman monster heel. No one else is supposed to be on his level in that respect, thus other wrestlers will still be vulnerable to the horrors of a HIAC match. Honestly, the only thing buried in that match was The Curbstomp. Rollins has needed to do more and more Curbstomps to beat his opponent starting with the three on Lesnar to finally beat him. The Fiend took five or six and still was not beat. Another reason I think Rollins will turn heel - he’ll need to reinvent himself, which might mean reinventing his moveset, too.

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Jon Moxley

I haven’t blogged about wrestling whole-heartedly since 2011. Eight years. The last time I blogged about wrestling (on my old page) was June 29, 2011 - two days after the infamous Pipebomb speech. I marked the fuck out. And then everything went to shit, Punk eventually left and I stopped watching wrestling for a very long time.

Recently I’ve gotten back into watching wrestling. Sparked by going to a ton of local indie shows. I wasn’t paying close attention to the weekly TV shows, but I’d read articles and keep up with some news on Twitter. Then, Summerslam was announced in Toronto for 2019 and I got back into it hard. Not as hard as I was into it pre-2011, but hard enough that I was watching anything from TV that I could get my eyeballs on. I’ve been consuming it recently as a general fan of the “sport,” not the enormous mark I was pre-2011. And it’s been nice. I can’t say I really have a favourite current wrestler, so I don’t have a ton of specific things to be excited about, but it’s nice to be excited about wrestling as a whole instead of fixating.

But on Wednesday morning, I marked the fuck out. Dean Ambrose, who had tweeted, what, once? his entire time in WWE had changed his Twitter to Jon Moxley and dropped this video. I was a big fan of Jon Moxley before he came to WWE and super excited when he signed with WWE... and then Dean Ambrose debuted and I was pretty disappointed. I wanted to enjoy the character, but I did not. I missed Jon Moxley. And the fact that they paired him with Tyler Black Seth Rollins who debuted around the same time just made it less interesting for me since I was not a fan of his in the indies and didn't care that he had signed to WWE. So yeah, to see that Jon Moxley was back: I marked out. I marked out enough that I decided I needed to blog about it. Everyone's been talking about it and I have thoughts. Thoughts that can't be contained to a 140 240? retweet reply on Twitter. So here returns the wrestling blogging (no guarantees this'll be a regular thing, though, folks. I'm super bad with follow-through/upkeep).

The big question about the video is - what does it mean? As much as I want to just enjoy it in an isolated sense for what it is and not think about what it implies, one has to ask what it means. It's a great video on its own no matter where Moxley ends up, but fans want answers. Other talk about the video revolves around the imagery therein. The building from which Jon escapes, the scenery around him, etc.

Let's start with that second part - the imagery. Most of the comments on Twitter describe the building as the prison from which Dean is escaping and then point the finger at that prison being WWE (since it has been known to be pretty oppressive to its Superstars). Maybe. But the first thing I thought of when I saw it was that he was escaping the Ambrose asylum... because he's not that character anymore. Sure, they could have made it look more like a hospital, but I think the image still works with the way it's styled. It felt very much like Arkham asylum to me in that video - which was both a prison and an asylum, no?

We also see Dean breaking down walls - did he do that in WWE? Sure, a lot of new Superstars have. But who else do we associate that phrase with? Jericho. Keep that in mind for when I address the "where is he going?" question.

There's also the "Big Dog" chasing him out of the asylum. An easy reference to Reigns. But is he chasing him away, or is he chasing him to try to get him not to leave? At Dean's final Raw taping, the SHEILD came out after the cameras were off to say goodbye/thank you, and the crowd chanted "please don't go." Seth replied, "I already tried that." Seth - not Roman. Now, I'm not saying Roman didn't try to get Dean not to leave, but canon doesn't really sway in that favour. I think we are seeing Roman chasing Dean away. In the sense that maybe Roman got the push that Dean always wanted and Roman's success is what drove Dean to leave the Asylum.

The final image being talked about is the dice painted on the wall in the background of one shot. A 2 and a 5, the date of the next AEW event. But above the dice, it says VIPER, a name most commonly associated with Randy Orton (unless there's an indie viper reference I'm missing). So the message there is mixed. Is this one a reference to AEW or is the 25 a coincidence and it's actually a reference to WWE with the word "VIPER"? I haven't quite sorted this one out. I feel like VIPER being a WWE reference is maybe a little flimsy. Not too sure.

Now, let's address the question of "WHAT DOES IT MEAN, THOUGH!?" So, Dean Ambrose is no more. The new character is Jon Moxley, and given the hardcore imagery, it's a return to the old Jon Moxley. So where does Jon Moxley end up? Is this a promo video for a new WWE iteration of Dean Ambrose under his old name? Is this his announcement that he's signed with AEW? Is Jon Moxley returning to his CZW home? Or, is he going somewhere else entirely?

LIKE HONESTLY IT DOESN'T MATTER JUST ENJOY HOW GREAT A PROMO IT WAS AND ENJOY ALL WRESTLING. But OK, we're still all speculating and still want answers.

There's an argument he could be staying with WWE. They've reinvented characters a ton of times - sometimes they keep their old names (most recently, Bray) and sometimes they don't (another recent example: EC3). The production quality is high enough that it could be a WWE video. There are enough WWE references that it could be a WWE stay: The Big Dog, the Asylum, break the walls down, showing the old character of Dean Ambrose himself. But while the quality is up there, I don't think the tone/theme really screams WWE, unless they have a new production/creative team doing these videos, which is entirely possible. Moreover, Renee Young is staying on WWE... she hasn't left. I'd say she has no real reason to leave. I mean, AJ didn't leave immediately when Punk did and perhaps her best run was even after Punk left.

The other main consensus is that he's going to AEW. The breaking the walls down imagery could be a reference to Jericho, as mentioned above - who is a huge frontrunner for AEW. The dice show 25 which, again, is the date of the next big AEW show. AEW has a huge Twitter presence, a ton of their promo videos drop on Twitter. It's the platform for them right now. WWE has been trying to have a bigger presence on Twitter as far as Superstars sending tweets to strengthen feuds, but this feels different - this isn't something WWE has done before (again, could be a new team). Other wrestlers who are rumoured to be joining AEW have responded on Twitter to the video, too - in ways that could be considered calling out Jon to start a new feud at their new fed. The example I saw was Joey Ryan saying something to the effect of "I've taken a barbed-wire bat to the dick, what else you got?" Or maybe that's my own wishful thinking because I'd love to see a Ryan/Moxley feud since they're two of my faves.

And lastly, maybe Moxley is going home to CZW or even going elsewhere. It just doesn't feel like this is another company's doing. Maybe I'm being prejudice but I don't think any other companies would have the budget to do something that high quality (or maybe I'm just bad at judging the quality of videos lol). Maybe Impact? But this doesn't feel like the way they promote new characters. This feels big. I don't think there's anywhere other than AEW or WWE that's as big at this moment. But then again, it could be an up and coming competitor who's using this as a launching board to get big.

What are your thoughts? Where is Moxley going? Why do you think that? Do you even care where he ends up?

I'm firmly in the camp of being excited regardless of where he ends up. I still want answers, but when that music hits and he pops out on the ramp I'm gonna mark regardless of what show's name is on that ring apron.

[notaringrat]

‪I wish NHL hockey was like wrestling and players cut promos on each other. Price comes back from injury and another dude goes off on him Jericho style like when Batista came back from injury https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvWPp_lD9PA&t=4m55s particularly 5:43 he could be like “You’re just like that other injury-prone loser, Markov.”‬

[notaringrat]

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Cena is on the injured list very rarely. (I've been watching WWE on and off for almost 15 years, and I can only remember one injury?... except for the one shiv to the kidney from Carlito's lackey Jesus, that wasn't actually a real injury?)

The scary thing is this: the fact that Cena is so rarely injured, probably means that he's actually really good at wrestling. That makes me sad.

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Face/Heel Musings...

For as long as I can remember, I've loved heel characters. Not even just in wrestling; I root for most villains in pop-culture. Of course, there are some faces in wrestling that I have liked, but for the most part, I root for the heels, and get really excited when faces I like turn heel.

I have never liked John Cena. At all. Ever. He could drop off the face of the earth and I wouldn't care. But, if Cena turned heel (something I've been wishing for, for years), I would mark out so hard. And I would probably be a fan of it. I hope that if they ever do that, there will be so much thought that has gone into it over these years, that it will be epic. The only other option is that it's horrible and I hate him even more, but I really don't think that would happen (and, trust me, I usually assume the worst will happen when it comes to sports entertainment writing).

On the other hand, I have also always hated Tyler Black. Seth Rollins. Whatever the fuck he's called. I insist on still calling him Tyler Black for some reason. I dunno. ROH Forever. He makes a pretty good heel. But I still don't like him (and not because I'm supposed to hate him because he's a heel). But, the fact that he's a heel makes me want to like him. I just can't find any reason to. He seems like he has the potential to win me over, but I've been watching him since ROH and he still hasn't succeeded, so I'm not holding my breath. I wish he was a face, because it would make me feel better about not liking him.

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We’ve had a few issues to take care of this week, but we’ll have new episodes coming along next week. While you are waiting, though, why not check out the Summerslam series of podcasts?

SummerSlam 1988: Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage v. Andre the Giant & Ted DiBiase

SummerSlam 1989: Hulk...

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World Wrestling Federation. 

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Ahhhh-mazing.

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I love this set of Now and Then photos from wwe.com

- Andrew

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I don't even like babies and my ovaries still exploded.

Ladies… prepare your ovaries!

Andrew

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STOKED!!!

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onesilentcall:

Straight-edge means I’m greener than you.

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onesilentcall:

…well, this is awkward.

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getoffendedbone:

I had this dream when I was a kid… now it’s a movie?

The only thing that would make this movie any more epic is if one of the announcers was JR. But alas :(

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sugarazor:

Is this the real poster for TLC? If so, my faith in WWE has been at least somewhat restored.

I died.

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