It’s WWE Hell In A Cell this Sunday! With the oversaturation of the Cell gimmick match, it’s hard to get excited about it anymore (unless they have a Cell match in a non-Hell In A Cell PLE, like they did in Saudi Arabia last year). Sure, they mostly produce decent matches, but they have now been reduced to basic No DQ matches inside a steel structure. However, one awful, awful example of the gimmick match remains stuck in my mind: Seth Rollins vs The Fiend.
Bray Wyatt’s character The Fiend was billed as an unstoppable, indestructable monster, a horror villain in the ring. He debuted at Summerslam, and thanks to the positive crowd reaction, he was thrust into the Universal Championship contention. The Champion? Seth Rollins. Of course, you couldn’t have The Fiend lose so soon after his debut. But Rollins had also won the Championship at Summerslam, so you couldn’t really have him lose the belt so quickly. So how would the match end?
The match itself took place in the red light always present for The Fiend’s matches, and it was always something I disliked. It was hard to see what was going on!!! And what you could see wasn’t all that exciting. As always, The Fiend would immediately stand up after any attack. So Rollins hit him with kendo sticks, with steel stairs, frog splashed him through a table, and still The Fiend shook it off. I understand what they were going for, but it doesn’t exactly put you on the edge of your seat, does it?
Then things became silly. Rollins hit The Fiend wi.th his finisher, the Curb Stomp the Fiend immediately got up. Rinse and repeat…for what felt like an eternity. Boos rang out, but they still repeated the same sequence. Even when Rollins laid a chair on The Fiend’s head and smashed a ladder into it, the monster still kicked out…
Rollins then grabbed a slegdehammer from under the ring, and despite the referee pleading for Rollins to stop, Rollins went ahed and smashed the sledgehammer into the chair and ladders on The Fiend’s head. Inexpicably, the referee called for the bell. Cue howling boos for the crowd.
Had Rollins been disqualified? Had he won? What happened? The hout was actually ruled as a no contest. Yes, the feud-ending gimmick bout had been ended without a victor. After almost twrnty minutes of medicore action, that was the ending. The Fiend had been beaten down for over five minutes straight without making a comeback of any sort. The Hell in a Cell gimmick had almost been nullified. The Fiend did assault Rollins after the bout (which resulted in the monster being cheered over the babyface champion).
What was the point? Why shove The Fiend into the main event if you weren’t going to have him win the belt? Why end the match with a no contest?!? There is a great Hell in a Cell bout in the card, the opening match between Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks. Just watch that one. Don’t bother with this one, one of the worst Cell matches in WWE history.
Hammy’s Rating: * (out of 5)
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