WWE Hell in a Cell 2017 Results: Usos Win and the Best, Worst Booking Decisions

Stipulated pay-per-views like Hell in a Cell are a bit of a coin toss. The HIAC match is so out of the ordinary that it only works as the conclusion to an angle. What if it's showtime and the feud simply hasn't reached the proper fever pitch?

But this year, the level of animosity matched the extremity of the stipulation. One of the HIAC matches starred The Usos and The New Day, who have been the best parts of the blue brand for the past several months. This was a fitting, brutal end to their ongoing feud. And the other HIAC match was Kevin Owens vs. Shane McMahon. Owens' slur on McMahon's kids took that feud to the personal place where it needed to be.

The Usos and The New Day opened the show, and McMahon and Owens closed it. Who walked away from the ring tonight with their dignity (if not their bodies) in tact? Here are the best and worst booking decisions of the evening.

Best Decision: The Usos and the New Day Leave It All in the Ring

The Usos and The New Day fought the first match of the evening. When they all came out during their entrances, they looked deadly serious, and rightfully so.

This match was more brutal than anything we've seen from them before. The multiple kendo stick shots. The multiple suicide dives outside the ring. The tossed chairshot to the head. The use of the Cell itself as a weapon. All four competitors had angry welts across their chests and backs by the end of the match. And no matter how once slices it, a splash on to a steel chair is going to hurt. Badly.

If this is the end of their feud, it was one for the books. The Usos and The New Day will struggle for the rest of their careers to top the intensity, humor, trash talking and overall excellence of this feud. It was booked to perfection. Bravo. 

Worst Decision: Randy Orton Gets Another Win He Doesn't Need

This felt like a filler match when WWE announced it, and it worked like a filler match in practice. It's a standard issue, late-era Orton match. Everyone just waits for the #RKOOuttaNowhere. Everything else is just stalling.

Rusev's biggest mistake in all of this might be that he sells the RKO better than anyone has since Rob Van Dam. This was a terrible result in a long line of losses. He hasn't won at a PPV since last year's Roadblock.

It'ss time to turn Rusev face. He has a natural, easy sense of humor based on what he's shown off backstage. And it can't be worse than what the fans are getting now.

Best Decision: Baron Corbin Gets a Second Shot

Baron Corbin had a terrible summer. He lost his Money in the Bank briefcase. Then he lost his SummerSlam match to John Cena, cleanly, and didn't have the chance to get his revenge before Cena left for Raw. The Lone Wolf's push to the top of the card had been stopped in its tracks, perhaps permanently. It would be difficult for anyone to recover from back-to-back humiliations like those.

But it seems, based on tonight's match result, that Corbin is being given a chance to earn his way to the top, even though he's not being rocketed there. He's the new United States champion, which he will hopefully defend regularly. He needs as much TV time as possible so the fans can really learn to hate him.

Styles, meanwhile, is free to get back into the main event picture, which is where he belongs anyway.

Best Decision: Charlotte and Natalya Do an Injury Angle

Either Charlotte was legitimately injured in her match against Natalya, or she was selling incredibly well—better than fans have ever seen her sell before.

But legit or not, the leg injury led to an interesting, well-paced match, with Natalya working the knee and Charlotte battling against the odds. Charlotte is a natural heel, and the injury made her a lot more sympathetic than she usually is.

Even the DQ finish was booked well; it prolongs the feud and makes it more personal. It gives them more of a reason to hate each other beyond the Flair family vs. Hart family conflict.

Worst Decision: Shinsuke Nakamura Loses Again

Credit: WWE.com

Oh no. Not again.

Jinder Mahal beat Shinsuke Nakamura in a WWE championship title match for the second time. And slowly, but surely, the mystique that makes Nakamura special is eroding. He is a long way from his NXT peak when he broke Samoa Joe's jaw to clinch the NXT championship. Now, he's just another guy who falls victim to the Singh Brothers' obvious, cliched shenanigans.

Nakamura was white-hot when he first debuted on SmackDown. But WWE Creative has squandered that potential, and for what? To preserve a paper champion, who is clearly out of his depth (the entire match was a sloppy mess, from start to finish)?

It seems this angle will not end with Nakamura as champion. And thus, it should have never been booked to begin with.

Best Decision: Bobby Roode Cheats to Win a Hard-Fought Match

This booking had its cake and ate it too. It gave Bobby Roode a win on his first WWE main roster PPV. It preserved Dolph Ziggler as a heel who can talk as well as he fights. And it prolonged the two men's feud, which, based on that performance, has the legs to last until the end of the year.

Roode is an interesting one. Nothing he does is particularly flashy or eye-popping—he works slowly, with strong fundamentals anchoring a methodical game. So it's perfect that he has Ziggler as a foil, who sells like a jumping bean. These two are incredible workers; they could fight for the next six months and it still wouldn't get old.

Best Decision: What Did We Just Watch?

This match was unbelievable. Heart-in-the-throat theatrics for the entire time. It's amazing how the most simple punches and slams can be so gut wrenching when performed 16 feet up in the air. And once again, Shane came off the top of the Cell and lived to tell the tale.

There is an airbag underneath the table now—Mick Foley didn't have that luxury. But regardless, this match has set the bar too high, and no one should try to top it.

And the final swerve, with Sami Zayn making the save, was completely unexpected. What were his reasons? And what's next in this long-running love/hate bromance? Fans will be watching SmackDown to find out. And there's no better proof of a great booking than that.