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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Did you feel underwhelmed by this year\u2019s &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell? &lt;/em&gt;Did the titular reference to literal damnation feel a little unearned in that endless slog of Randy Orton chair-shots? You\u2019re not alone! &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell&lt;/em&gt; matches used to epitomize the most brutally violent tendencies of television pro wrestling, but in modern times, all those battles are relegated to the history books. That\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing. It\u2019s good that our superstars will still be walking in their 50s, but it does make us misty-eyed for that bygone era. We know so much more now, and that\u2019s a blessing and a curse.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thankfully, with the WWE network, all that bloody nostalgia is only a few clicks away! I went ahead and revisited six of the most notable &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell&lt;/em&gt; matches of all time, and organized them into a brief viewing guide. So sit back, relax, and cringe all over again.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker \u2013 &lt;em&gt;Badd Blood &lt;/em&gt;1997&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You don\u2019t really need to watch this match. Sure it\u2019s the first &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell&lt;/em&gt;, the debut of Kane, 20 minutes of Michaels bumping like a dying bird, whatever. You don\u2019t actually need to watch it. The top-of-the-cage stuff is fine, but essentially a prototype for later, for more resonant drama, and in 2014 it\u2019s not exactly hard to find other great Taker matches that put over the Deadman as an unstoppable harbinger of doom.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Listen, I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s a bad match! It\u2019s totally solid! Just, you know, not exactly &lt;em&gt;required viewing. &lt;/em&gt;You should watch the last five minutes though, because old-mask Kane shows up and makes you remember an era where he wasn\u2019t some horribly neutered Authority stand-in who\u2019s lost every meaningful match he\u2019s had since\u2026 I don\u2019t remember when. Please WWE, bring back our Kane! As the first &lt;em&gt;Cell&lt;/em&gt; match it certainly sets up the context of what we now expect from the stipulation, but stuff like this exists to be iterated upon.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Triple H vs. Undertaker \u2013 &lt;em&gt;WrestleMania 28&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;How you feel about this match will always be tied to how you feel about Triple H in general.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you, like me, grew up in the Attitude Era, you probably love Triple H and thought DX was the coolest thing ever. If you are a little bit older, you might regard him as an under-talented snake who clawed his way to the top through backstage politics, an archetypal superstar build, and a fortuitous marriage. Everything big and epic Trips does gets painted with the \u201CUGH, HE\u2019S JUST DOING IT TO WRITE HIMSELF INTO THE HISTORY BOOKS\u201D brush, unless he\u2019s losing to guys like Daniel Bryan and, (yeah,) Chris Benoit.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It probably doesn\u2019t help that his two back-to-back Undertaker matches came in the &lt;em&gt;WrestleMania&lt;/em&gt;s after Shawn Michaels delivered on two absolute showstoppers (and two of my very favorite matches of all time), but I still think this gets a bit of a bad rap. Yes, it\u2019s the WWE at its most self-involved, with all the melodrama and two-and-a-half kickouts, but there\u2019s also a Sweet Chin Music into Pedigree nearfall. I don\u2019t care who you are, a Sweet Chin Music into Pedigree nearfall is &lt;em&gt;awesome. &lt;/em&gt;It\u2019s one of those moments where you have to put aside all the things you think you know about the WWE, and instead focus on the product. If you pull that off, which admittedly isn\u2019t easy for the average wrestling fan, you\u2019ll find not only one of the best &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell&lt;/em&gt;s, but one of the best Streak matches ever.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Mankind vs. Undertaker \u2013 &lt;em&gt;King of the Ring &lt;/em&gt;1998&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think enough time has passed that we can finally call a spade a spade. Undertaker vs. Mankind, that unforgettable, era-defining clash that turned Mick Foley into a people\u2019s hero, is one of the most overrated matches of all time.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To be fair, that\u2019s not exactly their fault. The WWE legend-making machine has been on constant overdrive making sure we, the fans, remember the image of Mankind\u2019s body busting through the top of the cage, a dislodged tooth hanging from the bottom of his nose. And yeah, that\u2019s pretty freaking essential. It hits all those lofty \u201Cera-defining\u201D requirements that tend to make wrestling incidents immortal.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But let\u2019s be real. The rest of this match is kind of garbage. Some loose, dazed brawling, a misanthropic tombstone, and a lot of stunned silence. Everyone in the building is clearly concerned about Foley\u2019s health, and legitimate \u201CI really hope I didn\u2019t just kill him\u201D fears tend to impede momentum. Foley, for all his star-making sacrifice, is more or less braindead after he takes that second fall. It\u2019s amazing he\u2019s able to keep in character considering he was wading through a foggy concussion \u2013 he famously asked Undertaker after the match if he had used thumbtacks, to which Taker bewilderedly replied, \u201CLook at your arm, Mick!\u201D Foley looked down, and realized he was absolutely covered in them.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you somehow haven\u2019t seen this, go watch it. Right now. It\u2019s easily the most famous, and most important match listed here, and it\u2019s still one of the best five Cell matches of all time. But if you\u2019re looking for anything more than those two big moments, the moments that Mick Foley brings up about once year ahead of a &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell&lt;/em&gt; match, you won\u2019t find much. In the grand tradition of Hogan vs. Andre, Michaels vs. Hart, and the entirety of Lex Luger\u2019s career, historical significance doesn\u2019t always translate to all-time greatness.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Undertaker vs. Edge \u2013 &lt;em&gt;SummerSlam &lt;/em&gt;2008&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;My dark horse top-5 choice, and perhaps my personal favorite of the many times Taker/Edge clashed in the ring. &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell &lt;/em&gt;has meant progressively less in the PG era; we\u2019re talking about something that earned its reputation from blood, gore, and horrifying bumps. There\u2019s only so many ways you can make a steel cage look dangerous when you\u2019re charging into it back-first. 2008\u2019s &lt;em&gt;SummerSlam &lt;/em&gt;arrived in the dying vestiges of the PG-13 era, and unsurprisingly, it\u2019s the last time &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell&lt;/em&gt; felt truly &lt;em&gt;violent. &lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edge is in full-on Brood mode here, making those marquee crazy eyes and putting a mostly-retired Mick Foley through a table. At the time, Edge was onscreen married to Vickie Guerrero, who was in a kayfabe wheelchair. Listen, if you\u2019re in a wheelchair, you should &lt;em&gt;never go into a wrestling ring with a heel. &lt;/em&gt;You\u2019d think the world would\u2019ve learned this by now, but nope, Guerrero gets dumped out like a fish by her now COMPLETELY INSANE husband. God, I miss Vickie already.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, this is one of those matches that probably infuriates a lot of wrestling purists. Every single memorable thing about it is a prop spot. Edge going through two tables! Undertaker getting his head smashed between chairs, busting open his neck! Edge spearing both of them through one of the walls, and then delivering a &lt;em&gt;second &lt;/em&gt;spear through the announce table! Edge gets about 20 minutes of offense before Taker finally wakes up, counters the Old School, and kills him with a Tombstone, which inevitably summons a lot of moaning about \u201Cpacing.\u201D But seriously, who cares?! It\u2019s the returning phenom against the most evil man in the world! Edge tries to use all of his hokey TLC tricks to try and steal a win in Taker\u2019s trademark format, and he &lt;em&gt;almost &lt;/em&gt;does it before his luck runs out. Living proof that ring psychology is alive and well in the realm of ladder spots.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Cactus Jack vs. Triple H \u2013 &lt;em&gt;No Way Out &lt;/em&gt;2000&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It\u2019s funny that Mick Foley\u2019s two most notable &lt;em&gt;Hell in a Cell &lt;/em&gt;matches, the matches that made the stipulation legendary, ended with him putting someone else over. But maybe that\u2019s the point. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen someone &lt;em&gt;lose &lt;/em&gt;as effectively as Foley did in the cell. His bout with Triple H will always be my personal favorite because it eschews some of that horrified, accidental silence that plagued his aforementioned &lt;em&gt;King of the Ring &lt;/em&gt;masochism. Trips and Cactus put on an actual show here; spots fuse together in natural order, and nobody starts climbing the cage until it makes sense. Eventually Cactus does find his body cascading through the top, but this time around he\u2019s landing on a crash-pad. Basically, it\u2019s a more tasteful, less accidental version of the Taker match, and a perfect way to send Foley into his first retirement.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker \u2013 &lt;em&gt;No Way Out &lt;/em&gt;2002&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is your number one. It is not the most historically relevant or especially out-of-the-ordinary, but it\u2019s easily the most fun. Undertaker gushes enough blood to make even the most resolute fan wince, with constant face-first slams into the steel. Heyman gets strangled, Tombstones get countered, and Brock Lesnar gets beaten to death with a cast. It\u2019s every bit of the brutal, ugly mulching that Hell in a Cell is supposed to be, all without a moment of wasted motion. Two big angry men turning the mat red. Perfect.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Follow Luke Winkie and Extra Mustard on Twitter and Facebook&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2014/10/29/best-hell-in-a-cell>