The Hell in a Cell main event booking benefited nobody

The booking of Hell in a Cell’s main event may have done more damage to its participants than it did good.

Fans can deduce that the booking of the Hell in a Cell main event between The Fiend and Seth Rollins was laid out so both men didn’t take a loss and both looked strong. But in the end, both competitors left the match looking worse than when they walked in.

Rollins came into the match against Bray Wyatt’s dark and monstrous alter ego visibly afraid. So the story that WWE was likely to tell was the classic tale of Rollins overcoming his fear and besting his enemy. That would have at least been a story that made sense. But WWE decided to go far beyond the overcoming fear storyline. Rollins never overcame his fear, he just gave into it and tried to cripple his opponent instead of beat him.

When Rollins couldn’t overcome The Fiend with his patented Stomp, he almost immediately gave into his urge to use weapons. Rollins is meant to be the hero of this storyline but what kind of “white meat” babyface uses sledgehammers and tool boxes in a match? Even if you view The Fiend not as a competitor but as a literal monster, Rollins gave in to his dark impulses way too quickly. This wasn’t the rubber match of a long psychological feud. This was the first match between these two in this program.

But maybe a saving grace could be a turn for Rollin’s character. A darker version of Rollins could emerge from this. But the issue with that theory is that fans know it won’t happen. WWE will just place Rollins right back where he was before the match as their company’s poster boy. So what was the point of him descending into the darkness? It literally means nothing and only makes Rollins look weak and heelish.

And let’s talk about The Fiend, the hottest property in WWE right now. The man who could not go into this match and lose because it would only throw ice on his meteoric rise to the forefront of the company. While he may not have been pinned, he might as well have been because The Fiend left the match looking worse than he ever has. The Fiend made a bad situation into a passable one for a while at least. The hokeyness of the red lights, the oversized mallet and the dozen finishers that Wyatt ate somehow didn’t detract from the overall presence of The Fiend.

But the “monster” that is The Fiend having to be saved by the referee ruined the entire persona of the creepy clown in an instant. The Fiend reawakening and beating down on Rollins afterwards was irrelevant. The match was booked like The Fiend was an inhuman juggernaut up until the end where the booking suddenly shifted to seeing The Fiend as a man who could be seriously injured. At no point in classic horror movies like Halloween or Friday the 13th does any character suddenly feel concerned for the movie monster, because those monsters are written to look indestructible. WWE can’t book The Fiend as a man and as a monster. Someone has to put their foot down and label him as one or the other.

Rollins leaves “Hell” looking like a coward and a heel and The Fiend comes out looking weak and human. This match never should have happened, and especially not the way that it did. Now, fans may look back on this night as the start of The Fiend’s and Wyatt’s descent back to the bottom of the card.