WWE chose the absolute worst time to book what may go down as one of the worst pay-per-views of all-time.

I’m sure WWE were walking with a little extra pep in their step after a strong debut on FOX on Friday. They scored their biggest rating in years and they are now rolling in dough with their new television deals kicking in this week. 

This pay-per-view may have been doomed from the start since they spent the final Smackdown celebrating themselves, and they only officially announced three matches prior to ‘Hell In A Cell’. They also made it clear that they didn’t care about this pay-per-view as they used Smackdown to build towards the show in Saudi Arabia on October 31st.

The show started out with what ended up being the best match of the night. Sasha Banks faced Becky Lynch for the RAW Women’s Championship. There were a lot of unique spots inside the cell and the weapons were used rather well. The finish was a bit underwhelming with Becky hitting a Bexploder from the top rope onto chairs and then Becky put Sasha in the Disarm-her for the submission win. This match should have went on later in the show.

I won’t spend much time on the rest of the show as the real issue with this pay-per-view was with the main event.

Roman Reigns/Daniel Bryan defeated Luke Harper/Rowan in a well-fought match. It was a tornado tag match, so the action was non-stop. The babyfaces won when Reigns and Bryan hitting their finishers back-to-back. It was the second-best match on the show.

The rest of the pay-per-view was a bit odd. Bayley lost the Smackdown Women’s Championship to Charlotte, but Bayley worked like a babyface until the end. The Kabuki Warriors (who are now heels for some reason) beat Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross for the Women’s Tag Team Championships after Asuka spit green mist in Nikki’s face. It’s like they just decided that Asuka and Kairi Sane were heels yesterday afternoon and went with it. This will not end well as I find it hard to believe that the crowd will ever boo them. They tried to make Asuka heel against Bayley, but it failed instantly. There were also forgettable matches of Baron Corbin vs Chad Gable and Randy Orton vs Ali.

Okay, let’s get to the biggest travesty, Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt for the Universal Championship.

First off, the match took place solely under red lights. They actually tried this same lighting when Kane first debuted, and it failed. Apparently the crowd were having a hard time seeing what was happening in the Cell during the match. 

The Fiend character played a horror monster and was no-selling most of Seth’s offense. Rollins hit him with a dozen Curb Stomps and he was kicking out of pins at ONE. At one point, The Fiend grabbed this comically large mallet and used it on Seth. The announce team said he was trying to ‘impale’ Seth…poor choice of words. Seth was getting frustrated that none of his offense was working and used kendo sticks, chairs, a tool box, and the greatest weapon of them all, Triple H’s sledgehammer!

Before Seth used the sledgehammer, the ref got in his face and said that Seth is better than this and shouldn’t stoop down to his level and use the sledgehammer. Seth ignored his advice and hit The Fiend with the sledgehammer…and then the most absurd moment of the night happened.

THE REF DISQUALIFIED SETH ROLLINS IN A HELL IN A CELL MATCH!!

The crowd booed and started to chant for AEW. The Fiend then sat up and attacked Seth and put the Mandible Claw on him while fake blood spewed out of Seth’s mouth. The crowd continued to jeer and chant for the match to restart.

This match was an absolute failure.

The Fiend is/was the most over character on WWE television. He was the only ‘cool’ character left on the show. The ending of this match may have killed all of his momentum. Seth’s run as champion has been a disappointment and this entire build has turned him in a geek. He has coward away from The Fiend every time he has been face-to-face and the ending further kills Seth’s character.

WWE picked the wrong time to act like WCW. I don’t have high hopes for the rating of Monday Night RAW as fans tend to not tune into RAW after bad pay-per-views. If viewership falls on FOX, they could find themselves on FS1 within a calendar year, but that would be the worst of the worst-case scenarios.

I’ve been a wrestling fan since before I could tie my shoes. I cheer for every wrestling promotion to do well and prosper. The ending of ‘Hell In A Cell’ just makes me sad for the entire industry and as a fan. WWE has been insulting the intelligence of their fans for quite some time, but to completely ignore the No-DQ stipulation in all Hell In A Cell matches, it is beyond insulting. I hope the backlash from this pay-per-view will be an eye opener for WWE, but as long as they continue to swim in cash from FOX, USA and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I don’t think it will make a difference.

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About the Author…

Bobby Roberts (otherwise known as Sweetbob) is the creator of ‘America’s White Boy’ and contributor at Project Shanks. His writing has been featured on ESPN’s ‘SportsNation’, Sports Illustrated’s Hot Clicks, Guyspeed, and various other sites. You can follow him on Twitter at @Sweetbob.