Cageside Community Star Ratings for Hell in a Cell 2022

After every WWE PPV, we ask you all to rank each match on the show using the star rating system made famous by Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

The results are in from Hell in a Cell, which once again came our way in the late spring/early summer. Below you’ll see how our little corner of the wrestle web graded what happened in the ring at Allstate Arena on June 5 — and how our subjective grades compare to Meltzer’s.

Many have asked “why Dave?”, which to me is fairly obvious. Love, hate, or don’t care about him, the Observer Star Rating is the proverbial industry standard. No one else’s are tracked by Wikipedia and other web outlets. You can’t place online bets on what grades other pundits will give big matches.

But in order to not make this all about Meltz, we added another fan-voted rating to the mix - this one from Cagematch. That site uses a ten point scale, so we’ve halved their ratings for ease of comparison.

Here’s what that all looks like:

The main point of discussion here is the main event. Purple-chested Cody Rhodes and polka dot-clad Seth Rollins didn’t just turn in a “Match of the Night” - their Hell in a Cell match seems destined to be talked about forever. It’s the first main roster WWE match to get five stars from The Observer since CM Punk & John Cena at Money in the Bank 2011. It’s the highest score our community’s given a match since I started tabulating these things a year-and-a-half ago.

(I haven’t pulled together a master list yet, but I plan to. I did check each of the 21 events we’re tracked, and the next highest community rating was Roman Reigns & Kevin Owens’ 4.61 stars at TLC ‘20.)

Rhodes & Rollins shouldn’t take away from a strong overall show, though. The Women’s Triple Threat opener was also a really good match, and there weren’t many duds. We only gave one match less than 3 stars; the other two systems each had two sub-3 star matches.

That made last Sunday’s show from Chicagoland our second highest rated WWE one of the past 12 months, and among the top half of events from the company for the Observer & Cagematch. Which you can see in our rundown of scores for every WWE PLE since last year’s Hell in a Cell:

Do Cageside’s Community Ratings match up with your personal ones? Any final thoughts on Hell in a Cell?