Batista vs Triple H (WWE, 6-26-2005)

WWE Vengeance, Paradise, NV

Request via Ko-fi. Batista won the Royal Rumble in January ’05, decided to stay on Raw and challenge HHH for the “world heavyweight” title instead of going to Smackdown to challenge JBL for the WWE title at WrestleMania, and thus defected from Evolution and became his own man, a babyface man. He battered and defeated HHH for the “world heavyweight” title at Mania, beat him in a rematch, HHH left Raw and came back to do a hammer attack, and now we’re here — FOR HELL IN A CELL!!!!!!!!!!

“The Hell in a Cell,” Jim Ross tells me, “is no doubt morally corrupt.” Ross also warns us that “this match is probably going to be pretty graphic” and “may not be appropriate for all members of the family, especially some of the younger kids that are watching.” He has seen HHH gimmick matches; no matter what else you think of Helmsley and his alleged “greatness,” he was in fact great at shit like this. He did deliver in cell and other violent gimmick matches. And by deliver I mean bleed.

HHH on the back foot early but he posts Batista’s shoulder outside, and also gets crashed into the cage pretty hard from the apron. HHH gets a big chain, I mean, it’s not a Hercules “big chain,” but it’s a pretty big chain. Well, it’s two big chains, I guess in case one malfunctions. Batista getting whipped with the chain, but then he gets the chain, and it is he whomst does the whipping.

The Game has now been deeply lacerated at the hands of the world heavyweight champion, but he hits a big spinebuster and goes out to fetch a chair with barbed wire wrapped around it. Obviously, of course, Hunter is bleeding pretty damn good already, because he is HHH and that’s what he does.

HHH is a hilarious wrestler and persona because he’s basically the only MF who goes and fetches a chair with barbed wire wrapped around it and the commentators have to be, like, “God, this guy is so smart. The CEREBRALS.” Everyone else who does it is a hillbilly or nutter butter of some sort.

Ultimately Batista eats some chair shots over the back, but he gets the weapon himself and cracks Hunter in the skull with it, then grinds the wire into his forehead so HHH can do more blood. Big ol’ Dave slam on the wire chair gets two. “You gotta hand it to Triple H, he may be a no-good bastard in a lot of peoples eyes, but that was a hell of a kick-out.” Yes. Thank you, Jim.

Batista grabs the chain that wasn’t used earlier and wraps it around his fist, but HHH DDTs him on the wire chair and that’s Batista’s chance to get bloody, probably. Yeah, he rolled out to the floor. Yeah, he’s bloody and glassy eyed.

Sledgehammer comes in, and we all know that the ridiculous fake jabbing of a sledgehammer is THE most dangerous thing of all. HHH lands one shot, but when he goes to use it like any other persona has ever used a sledgehammer before, that obviously is a no-go and he gets kicked in the balls instead.

When Batista gets the hammer and charges, he instead eats chainfist for two. HHH with a comical flop sell after jumping into a hammer shot. Batista brings the stair base into play in the ring and uses them, but he gets hit with the Pedigree and manages to kick out, anyway.

Helmsley tries for sort of an elevated Pedigree, instead gets spinebusted onto the steps. They tease Helmsley countering the Batista Bomb with the hammer in his hand, but he can’t swing it, just takes the power bomb and loses the match, hammer still in hand. A dramatic visual in Skull Man’s world, a nice zoom of his lamp, bloodied hand still gripping his toy.

This one has a wildly high rating on Cagematch and got 4.5* from the Observer. I’m not quite on that level with it, but it’s one of those ones where I think if a few factors were different (I’d been more tuned in at the time, I didn’t kinda loathe HHH, etc.) maybe I would be. I can see why it’s that high, but it’s not an elite tier Cell match for me. I think it also stands out because it is clearly better than the first two PPV matches they’d had, including their woefully disappointing WrestleMania match, which would have simply been a forgettable match except it was the crowning of Batista with his first world title, similar to the JBL-Cena match on the same show. Batista and Cena both rebounded pretty well, I’d say. Went on to do some OK stuff.

Rating: 4/5