WWE's most iconic Hell In A Cell Moments

Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon took part in a brutal Hell In A Cell match featuring an unexpected twist!
Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon took part in a brutal Hell In A Cell match featuring an unexpected twist!

The Hell In A Cell is one of the most notorious stipulations in the WWE. Some of the company's greatest moments have involved the deadly structure. From Mankind taking a fall off the top of the cage through the announce table, to Mankind being tossed through the cell via a chokeslam from the Undertaker, to Mick Foley...okay, a lot of the best HIAC spots involve The Hardcore Legend, but there are other great matches that you may have forgotten about!

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That's what we're here to look at today. Join us as we take a look back at some of the most heinous spots in Hell In A Cell matches as we move closer to Hell In A Cell 2018! Not surprisingly, most of these moments feature The Undertaker and Mick Foley.


#5 The Undertaker sends Edge to Hell at SummerSlam 2008

Edge was put through Hell at SummerSlam 2008
Edge was put through Hell at SummerSlam 2008

The Undertaker and Edge had an intense rivalry back in 2008. The Rated R-Superstar began a World Heavyweight Title feud with The Undertaker more than a year and a half before this event, cashing in the Money in the Bank briefcase on the Deadman back in 2007. After reigniting their feud around WrestleMania 24, Edge lost the Heavyweight Championship to the Deadman on the Grandest Stage of Them All.

While a CM Punk cash in would remove the championship from the rivalry, Edge still attempted to rid himself of The Undertaker, culminating in a Hell In A Cell match at SummerSlam 2008.

A spear left both men gasping for air on top of the fallen cell wall
A spear left both men gasping for air on top of the fallen cell wall

This match was full of hardcore moments. Edge ran The Undertaker through the cell wall with a vicious spear, leading the two men to the outside. Again, Edge speared the Deadman, putting him through the announce desk.

When they found themselves back inside the structure, The Undertaker gained the upper hand, putting Edge through two tables with a chokeslam from the top rope. He would also connect with a spear of his own, along with Edge's patented Con-chair-to, before finishing off his rival with a Tombstone Piledriver.

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The Undertaker wasn't finished with Edge yet, however. After Edge was laid out in the middle of the ring, the Phenom began to leave the arena. But when he saw the Ultimate Opportunist stirring in the ring, he went back to finish the job. The Undertaker took Edge to the top of a ladder, then chokeslammed him through the ring.

To put an exclamation point on the Rated-R Superstar's burial, The Undertaker lit the pit on fire, as J.R. exclaimed that he had been "sent to Hell."

#4 Cactus Jack falls through the cell at No Way Out 2000

Cactus Jack
Cactus Jack swore he would put Triple H through Hell that he could never dream of at No Way Out 2000

This won't be the first time Mick Foley appears on this list, but it's hard to talk about Hell In A Cell matches and not mention the absolutely devastating battle he went through with Triple H at No Way Out 2000.

Foley and The Game had a storied rivalry throughout the Attitude Era, but with a new era dawning with the McMahon-Helmsley dynasty, Foley did what he could to fight back against the machine. As Mankind, he fought through Triple H's D-X, but when it came time to challenge for the, then, WWF Championship, he reverted back to Cactus Jack, a far more brutal version of himself.

Though he was unsuccessful at challenging for the belt at the Royal Rumble, The Game gave Foley one more chance, even allowing the Hardcore Legend to choose the stipulation.

Foley revealed that they would do battle in a Hell In A Cell match, but Triple H would only agree to it if Foley put his career on the line. With a career vs title bout set inside the Devil's Playground, the WWE Universe ended up watching Foley's career come crashing down, both literally and figuratively, as he was launched through the top of the cell.

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Cactus Jack had set Triple H up for a piledriver at the top of the cage, but The Game countered with a back body drop, which caused Cactus to fall through the cell, crashing through the ring below.

The Cerebral Assassin would eventually put Cactus Jack away, ending the career of Mick Foley.

#3 The entire Brock Lesnar vs The Undertaker match at No Mercy 2002

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Brock Lesnar spent 27 minutes trying to break The Undertaker's hand

No, not their match from 2015, though that was also a great fight. However, it's hard to not pick the first Hell In A Cell match between The Beast Incarnate and The Undertaker, Big Evil Taker specifically.

By the time No Mercy 2002 came around, Brock Lesnar had held the WWE Championship for only a few months. After the Next Big Thing won the Undisputed Title from The Rock at Summerslam, he signed an exclusive deal with the Smackdown brand, renaming it the WWE Championship while Triple H was awarded the World Heavyweight Championship on Raw.

No Mercy 2002 featured a pretty impressive card even without the main event. Triple H and Kane defended their World Heavyweight and Intercontinental Championships in a unification match, and Chris Benoit teamed with Kurt Angle to win the WWE Tag Team Championships by defeating Edge and Rey Mysterio. However, no match would be able to stand up to the vicious bout between The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar the crowd would see later in the night.

Heading into the bout, The Deadman was sporting a cast on his right arm, which he earned after the Champion broke his hand earlier that month. With an easy target for Lesnar to exploit, the whole bout came down to the Deadman attempting to protect his damaged hand from his monstrous opponent. Over the next 27 minutes, the Alltel Arena bore witness to one of the most gruesome Hell In A Cell matches the WWE had ever produced.

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Lesnar battered Undertaker's cast with chair shots as the Deadman's screams echoed throughout the arena

Though they never left the structure, Lesnar and Taker went to war. The Deadman started off the match by busting the WWE Champion wide open with his cast and launching Lesnar into the cell. However, Paul Heyman distracted The Phenom long enough to give Lesnar a chance to catch his breath, allowing the Beast to gain the upper hand. Eventually, after slamming Taker's arm into the cell and the ring post repeatedly, he would twist the cast off, and continued to work on the injured hand.

What really made this memorable had nothing to do with someone being dropped through the cell or ran through the cell walls, but the brutality that was shown that night as Brock Lesnar attempted to break Undertaker's hand again over an almost thirty-minute brawl. It was disgusting, it was vile, it was bloody, and it was just the kind of fight we expected to see from Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker.

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Brock Lesnar brutalized The Undertaker, earning the respect of the fans in his first title reign

At the end of the night, Brock Lesnar was victorious and scaled the cage to celebrate his dominance over the broken Deadman.

#2 Rikishi is Chokeslammed off of the cage at Armageddon 2000

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A star-studded Hell In A Cell match featured gratuitous amounts of carnage

Armageddon 2000 featured a six-man Hell In A Cell match for the WWF Championship. Kurt Angle, who walked into the match as champion, was one of the last men anybody expected to leave with the title by the end of the night. In a match that featured Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and Hell In A Cell veterans The Undertaker and Triple H, Kurt Angle was at a severe disadvantage.

However, the Olympic Gold Medalist had a better night than the "Bad Man" Rikishi, who was put to rest by The Undertaker near the end of the match.

The Armaggedon Hell In A Cell match was pure chaos. All six men fought throughout the arena, using weapons, the cell, and cars used as part of the PPV's set to cause severe harm to each other. However, the worst part in the match came when The Undertaker and Rikishi were standing atop the cell.

Mr. McMahon had driven a truck down to the cell in an attempt to tear it down and end the match. Commissioner Mick Foley stopped the Chairman, taking him to the back, leaving the truck near the cell.

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Rikishi's fall from the main event scene could be summed up in this one picture

The Undertaker chokeslammed Rikishi off the cell into the bed of the truck, putting the 400 pounder out of commission for the night.

As far as the championship, Kurt Angle rolled up The Rock for the victory, stealing a win in what was, otherwise, a very destructive bout featuring some of the greatest performers of the Attitude Era.

#1 The entire Mankind vs The Undertaker match at King of the Ring 1998

It wasn't pretty, but Mankind vs The Undertaker was the greatest Hell In A Cell match that we will ever see
It wasn't pretty, but Mankind vs The Undertaker was the greatest Hell In A Cell match that we will ever see

Of course, the list has to end with the most memorable Hell In A Cell match of all time. When the WWE Universe thinks of this stipulation, they immediately think of the war that Mankind and The Undertaker went through at King of the Ring 1998.

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As the Undertaker walked down to the ring, Mankind awaited him at the top of the hellish structure. The Deadman immediately went after him, quickly ascending to the top of the cage, and brawled with the Deranged One for only minutes before the unthinkable happened.

The Undertaker threw Mrs. Foley's Baby Boy off of the cell, sending Mankind crashing through the announcer's desk below. "By God they killed him! As God as my witness, he is broken in half!" Those shocked and horrified words from Jim Ross still echo through the heads of wrestling fans throughout the world.

Many assumed that the match was finished at this point. How could someone survive that fall? If they did, surely they wouldn't continue the match.

Not many people would, but not many people are as insanely tough and dedicated to the game as Mick Foley, who got off the stretcher he was placed on and climbed back to the top of the cage, much to the surprise of the Undertaker.

Somehow, that first fall wouldn't be the worst thing Mick Foley had to experience that night, as a chokeslam through the top of the cage left him broken in the middle of the ring. According to many sources, including the two men who participated in the match, Foley wasn't supposed to go through the cage, which is why officials rushed the ring to check on his state. There wasn't much left for the commentary team to say, with Jerry Lawler stating, "That's it. He's dead."

Unknown at the time, the chair that fell with him also hit him in the face as he landed, giving him a concussion and knocking a tooth into his nose. Viewers at home wouldn't notice this until a close up from a camera showed Foley laughing as blood dripped from his mouth and a tooth was shown lodged in his left nostril. After crotching The Undertaker during Old School, Mankind sat in the corner to enjoy the moment, leaving an image that hasn't left our minds in twenty years.

With the match finally swinging in his favor, Foley didn't waste time and would use the environment to tear down the Undertaker. Taker attempted a suicide dive to the outside later in the night, only to force himself head first into the side of the cage. Foley would bring the Phenom into the ring where he would plant him on a chair with a piledriver.

The end of the match came when Mankind introduced the thumbtacks, as he attempted to put his longtime rival away with another devastating move. However, the Undertaker countered a Mandible Claw attempt into a slam on the tacks, followed by a Chokeslam onto the tacks, then finished off Mankind with a Tombstone Piledriver.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bore witness to, not only one of the most gruesome matches ever seen but one of the greatest wrestling matches that have ever been put on by any two men.

The Undertaker and Mick Foley are legends in many ways. They've both had legendary moments outside of this match, but when it's all said and done when someone mentions The Phenom or Mrs. Foley's Baby Boy, they always come back to this Hell In A Cell match.

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