Seth Rollins Vs. Kevin Owens Was Originally Scheduled To Be The Main Event Of ‘Hell In A Cell’
In the weeks leading up to this past Sunday’s Hell in a Cell show, there was a ton of debate surrounding which match should be the show’s main event. There were reports which suggested that the Women’s Championship match between Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks would close out the show, but there were also reports which said that WWE chairman Vince McMahon was against the idea of the women’s match being the main event.
Just a few hours before the show, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that the Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks match would, in fact, be the show’s main event. So, WWE decided to make history by having the women main event a pay-per-view, which had never been done before. They also decided to make history by putting them inside Hell in a Cell, which also had never been done before.
Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte to main event WWE Hell in a Cell https://t.co/7fV7rlreVV pic.twitter.com/2M2sX72j5z
— Wrestling Observer (@WONF4W) October 30, 2016
On the post-Hell in a Cell edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said that the Women’s Championship wasn’t originally scheduled to go on last and that the change was made the day before the show. He also said that the Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens match for the Universal Championship was the original main event and that both Owens and Rollins performed with a bit of a chip on their shoulder because they were taken out of the main event spot.
“So this is the story on the show: originally, Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens were gonna go on last, and if you watched Kevin when he came out, you could see it in his face, and in certain things that he did that they were gonna go out there and prove that making [Charlotte vs. Sasha the main event] was a bad mistake. So yesterday — last night — they convinced Vince that ‘you gotta do it.'”
Most people assumed that he women would go on last simply because the show took place in Boston, Massachusetts, which is Sasha Banks’ hometown. But, nobody really thought that Charlotte would end up beating Sasha if the match went on last.
Also according to the Observer, the decision to have Charlotte regain the Women’s Championship was a decision that was made by Vince McMahon on the day of the show. Originally, Sasha Banks was supposed to retain the Women’s Title in her hometown.
Having the women main event a pay-per-view was something that WWE had been planning for quite a while, but they never had a specific date for it. Of course, we saw the women main event shows all the time while they were down in NXT, most notably the NXT Takeover: Brooklyn show in August of last year, where Bayley defeated Sasha Banks to become the NXT Women’s Champion. But, we had never seen the women main event a main roster pay-per-view before.
Most people who watched the Hell in a Cell show believe that the Universal Championship match was better than the Women’s Championship match, which, according to Dave Meltzer, may not mean good things for the women.
#HIAC results: Raw Women's Champion Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte in a Hell in a Cell match https://t.co/pMobIymsWD pic.twitter.com/VM1h1gpcun
— Wrestling Observer (@WONF4W) October 31, 2016
On the aforementioned Hell in a Cell review show, Vince McMahon may not want to have the women main event a show for quite a while simply because the women’s main event was somewhat flat. Of course, that could be because Charlotte ended up defeating Sasha in her hometown, which baffled most people, but, Vince probably won’t see it that way.
Next month’s Survivor Series will be headlined by the Brock Lesnar vs. Bill Goldberg match, and everyone else on the roster will be involved in multi-person tag team matches. So, at least for the next month, WWE won’t have to worry about what their next pay-per-view’s main event should be.
[Featured Image by WWE]
